The BitlBee package is way outdated. The version in the repositories is 1.0.4 while the upstream version is 1.2.3! It is also orphaned. Moreover Simo Leone's drop root patch doesn't apply anymore. Flagging the package out of date and contacting the previous maintainer did not change anything.

You can find an updated version in the attachment. There are a few changes to the previous package:
First of all the pkg-config files are included to facilitate the building of BitlBee plugins like Miklos Vajna's bitblee-skype.
Second, BitlBee is launched with the right privileged by its init script instead of relying on the drop root patch.
Also the PKGBUILD as been modernized according to the current templates.

Please someone adopt the package in [extra] and update it or push it to unsupported for someone else to maintain.