Traditional Forest Beekeeping and Its Challenge in Benishangul Gumuz Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess the status of traditional forest beekeeping and related challenge faced by the beekeepers in three representative districts of Benishangul Gumuz. Through the systematic random sampling method, 167 households were selected and data were collected through a semi-structured interview schedule. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square test, and T-test of Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 23). The result shows as compared to the backyard and other beekeeping systems traditional forest beekeeping (71.30%) was still the major type of honey bee colony management in the region. During honey harvesting, 43.71% of beekeepers harvest any hive product by throwing the hive from the long tree and collecting the entire available hive product at night time of the day. Beekeepers' response shows that the factors were no different (P>0.05) across the district to keep honey bee colonies traditionally in the forest area. The result further indicates the participation of females in the beekeeping sector is still very low level in the study area (10.2%). In conclusion, in the study area due to forest beekeeping practice the honey bee population, diversity, and the hive product highly declined and the beekeepers still have not benefited from the sector. So, to decrease traditional forest beekeeping practice further activities must be done by the government and a research center on the integrated improved forest beekeeping, awareness creation, and on reducing honey bee race aggressiveness behavior.

Keywords

• Forest beekeeping
• Benishangul Gumuz
• Traditional hive
• Honeybee

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