Oromia Agriculture Research Institute Adami Tulu Agricultural Research Center Review of

29 Pages·2016·3.79 MB·English

Evaluation of Transitional and Modern bee hives for
honey production in mid Rift Valley of Ethiopia
By:
Taye Beyene
Cairo, Egypt,
September,2015
Presentation out lines
Introduction

Materials and method

Results and discussion

Conclussion

Recommendation

Introduction
Beekeeping plays great role in diversifying farmers’

income especially for resource poor farmers
(Nuru,2002)
Ethiopia is the leading honey producer in Africa and

one of the ten top honey producing countries in the
world (Ayalew,1990)
Having wide climatic and edaphic variability

It is home to some of the most diverse flora and

fauna in Africa
Surplus nectar and pollen source to foraging bee

colonies
Help for the existence of more than 12 million bee

)
colonies in the country (Gezahegn, 2001
Con’t...
has the potential to produce about 500,000 tones of honey

per year and 50,000 tones of beeswax annually, but
currently production is limited to 43,000 tones of honey
and 3,000 tones of beeswax (MOARD, 2008)
In Ethiopia in generally and in mid rift valley of Oromia in

particular, beekeeping has been practiced since an old age
But the role of this subsector in diversifying income of

farmers is very low
Con’t...
Despite the favorable agro-ecology for honey production

and the number of bee colonies the country is endowed
with, the level of honey production and productivity in the
country is remain low
One of the prominent factors for this low honey

productivity is the predominance utilization of traditional
hives and poor bee management practice
According to the study of Tesfaye Kebede and Tesfaye

lemma 2007 , about 98% beekeepers’ in mid rift valley of
Oromia, Ethiopia still using traditional bee hive for honey
production
Which is very low both in quantity and quality (<5kg/hive)

Con’t...
Thus the importance of this study to evaluate the

productivity performance of Transitional and
Modern bee hives in mid rift valley of Ethiopia in
order to promote improved bee hives with
improved management practices
Materials and Methods
Conducted in Adami Tulu and Arsi Negele districts of mid

rift valley of Ethiopia
AdamiTulu situated at:
Latitude of 7° 19' N to 7° 40' N and ’35 38° 30' E to 38°

53 'E
An altitude from 1500 to 2000 m. a. s. l

Arsi Negele situated at:
latitude of 7o09’ N to 7o41 N and 38o25’ E to 38o54’ E

An altitude ranges 1500 to 2300 m. a. s. l

Treatments
T1=Bee colonies with Transitional hives

T2=Bee colonies with Modern bee hives

T3=Bee colonies with Traditional hives (control)

Every treatment replicated three times

Modern hive Kenya top-bar Traditional hive
Farmers and site selection procedure
Farmers and sites were selected based on:

beekeepers experience and interest

Potentiality area for beekeeping

abundance of honey bee colonies in area

availability of common bee forage

accessibility of the areas to transportation service

Farmers Research Group (FRG) approach followed
Theoretical and practical

training was given for a total
of 30 beekeepers, bee
experts and DAs at
experimental sites
After training, the farmers

were organized as Farmers’
Research Group (FRG) to
perform all research
activities together
One transitional bee hive

was constructed at each
experimental site in mass
during the training session
and demonstrated to all
participants