Beekeeping Practice and Honey Production in North-East Dry Land Areas of Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the beekeeping husbandry practices and honey production in three districts of Waghimra Zone (Abergell, Sekota and Gazgibala). To collect the data, 332 respondents were selected using systematic random sampling from the three districts. Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaire, observation, key information interview and focus group discussion. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA using SPSS version-20. The overall trends of bee colony and honey production are declining over the last 5 years. The average honey yield per year/colony was 10.16, 13.61 and 23.32 kg for traditional, transitional and moveable frame hives, respectively. Most of the respondents (68.4%) in the study area practiced traditional beekeeping whereas 7.8 and 23.8% of the respondents practiced transitional and modern bee keeping system, respectively. There was a significant difference (p<0.05%) among the three agro-ecologies on traditional honeybee colonies holding per household. The major source of household income is from crop production 27.7%, livestock production 23.8%, beekeeping activities 16.9% and irrigation 15.4%. Therefore, beekeeping is the third ranking source of income for the households in the study area. Most of the respondents (bee keepers) visit their bees some times and rarely in months. Generally, beekeeping is still the 3rd major source of income for the households in the study area next to crop and livestock production, however, the expected output or income has not earned from this subsector due to various challenges existed in the study area. Thus, based on these findings, improving the awareness of the beekeepers through training is important to address the identified challenges and to improve the overall honey production in Waghimara Zone.

System Mapping of the Production and Value Chain to Explore Beekeeping Potential in Southwest Ethiopia

“…The traditional beekeeping system was dominant, followed by the modern and transitional beekeeping systems in the study area. This result is in line with the finding of several previous studies [10,32,36,55].…”

Production practices, trends, constraints and opportunities of beekeeping in Arba Minch Zuria District, Southern Ethiopia

“…Crop production, livestock production and beekeeping were ranked as rst, second and third sources of income, respectively. In line with this result, Kalayu et al (2017) and Dinku (2018) noted that beekeeping ranked third source for household income in North-East dry land areas of Amhara region and Sidama zone of Southern region, respectively. This is probably due to the fact that the beekeeping operation requires small initial capital with possibility of keeping honeybee in marginal farm lands where crop production is not possible and even by hanging in forest trees far away from homestead when farm land is not available as it was pointed out during discussion with key informants.…”