Ecological Importance of Honeybee Plants and Foraging Distance of Apis mellifera in Ngaoundal Subdivision, Adamaoua, Cameroon

The study was conducted at Massim cooperative, village of Ngaoundal Subdivision during February 2016 - January 2019 to point out the ecological diversity of the honeybee plants for their conservation and multiplication in order to promote the sustainable beekeeping. The foraging activities of Apis mellifera were observed on the flowering plants between 6 am and 6 pm through regular keen direct observations to the site twicea month fortnight around the apiary within the radius of 2 km. The result revealed a total of 92 species of plant distributed into 84 genus as source of food for bees. The honeybee plants were highly diversified (H' = 5.09) at the range of 1 km in 2018 during the rainy season. The rarest honeybee plants were relatively densified and abundant through the years within all the distance. The highest frequented honeybee plants were the most represented all over the site with a peak (100 %) between 1.5 - 2 km. Manihot esculenta (99.04) revealed the highest IVI. The Poaceae (131.22)and Euphorbiaceae (109.40) families revealed the maximum FIV. Local population was encouraged to protect and multiply these plant species for the apiculture perennity.