What Are The Bees Collecting?: Case Study Of Stingless Bees In The Central Region of Ghana

2012

English

Bees provide pollination service which is very important for the reproduction of most seed producing plants as well as food crops. The Pollination services are also crucial for biodiversity conservation. Apis mellifera bee species have been known and kept all over the world for pollination services. In recent times it has become critical to explore and enhance the prospects of other bee species as alternatives to A. mellifera due to diseases and pests such as the varroa mites. Some tropical countries such as Australia have benefited immensely from stingless beekeeping but this practice is non-existent in Ghana due to lack of knowledge about the bees even though some species are found. By means of Direct Visual Observation Method in a randomized complete block design, the foraging resources of stingless bees in a forest and coastal savannah ecologies were investigated, using coconut as test crop to form a baseline for stingless beekeeping in Ghana. The stingless bees in the two ecosystems visited only the floral parts of the coconut, collecting pollen and nectar. The bees collected more pollen than nectar from the coconut and the probability of the two sample t-test showed a highly significant difference (P< 0.001). Also the two species of Meliponula stingless bees, identified were found in either of the two ecosystems.

Combey, R.; Aidoo, K.; Kwapong, P. K.; Mensah, B. A.; Karikari, A. S.