Meliponiculture, a promising sector in Burkina Faso

Abstract

Melipones or stingless bees nest in various habitats distributed in the forest, savannah,
and fallow ecosystems of Burkina Faso. Little known and underexploited despite their
strong potential, they play an important ecological role as pollinators of many species
of wild plants and seem good candidates for future alternatives in terms of commercial
pollination. However, there is little data available on the breeding of melipones. This
study aims to popularize technical knowledge for the success of meliponiculture in
Burkina Faso. The experimental breeding melipones of the genera Hypotrigona and
Plebeina in the peripheral villages of corridor 1 in the south-central region of Burkina
Faso was conducted in 2023. About a hundred nests were excavated, prepared, hived,
and labeled before being placed in the meliponaries built for this purpose. The nests
were regularly monitored according to a monitoring sheet set up to assess the
adaptation and evolution of production. It turns out that Plebeina is more productive
but difficult to raise compared to Hypotrigona. Poor handling of the brood, pest
harassment, and famine caused the mortality of bees or their desertion.
Recommendations are made to meliponiculturists to use the icipe-3H hive for
breeding bees of the Hypotrigona genus and small clay pots with an average diameter
of 20 cm for breeding bees of the Plebeina genus. As for the breeding structure, the
hives can be installed on wooden shelves and the pots are buried in boxes containing
soil and equipped with a metal support. These results open up exciting prospects infood, medicine, and especially economics, like beekeeping in Burkina Faso.