ASSESMENT OF BEEKEEPING MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND HONEY AND BEESWAX PRODUCTION POTENTIAL IN EAST DENBIYA DISTRICT,AMHARA REGION,ETHIOPIA

Abstract

A cross sectional study was undertaken to assess beekeeping practices, identify major constraints and opportunities of honey and beeswax production and evaluate honey and beeswax production potential in east Denbiya district Amhara regional state from October 2019 to June 2020. For the household field survey, 192 beekeepers were selected from six PAs and from two agro ecologies namely highland and midland. For evaluating the honey and beeswax potential in the district, a total of 1,152 hives were used from traditional, transitional and modern hives. In both cases, the data was recorded in excel and analyzed by using SPSS (version 20).The survey result showed that, beekeeping was dominantly (90.6%) practiced by male households in the study area. Households in the study area holds large (2.10±0.499) number of colonies with traditional hive while the number of colonies kept in transitional and in modern hive was 2.40±0.64 and 2.45±0.84respectively. There was significant (P<0.05) variation in the number traditional empty hives in different agro ecology. From the study result, diseases,pests and predators and agro-chemical application were found to be the three major constraints of apiculture development in the district with the ranking index of 0.193, 0.15 and 0.142 respectively. Availability of honeybee flora such as wanza, sespaniya, nugi and other crop flowers (26.1%), suitability of the sector for employment opportunity (25%) and presence of ample experience by beekeepers (23.5%) were identified as the major opportunities for the development of apiculture sector in the district. The overall mean value of honey and beeswax yield in the district was found to be 12.22±0.62 and 0.84±0.04 kg, respectively. The average honey yield from modern hive (17.686 ±0.108) was found to be significantly (P>0.001) higher than transitional (10.741±0.106) and traditional hive (8.242 ± 0.107). While, there was no significant variation in wax yield obtained from transitional and modern hives. The study demonstrated that honey productions in the study area were hampered by several constraints and disease. Therefore, improvement of honey bee hive management, disease and pests prevention are paramount important. Furthermore, large scale and comprehensive season based research on constraints and honey bee diseases are highly recommended to set appropriate solution