All interviewed beekeepers were male headed households. Based on the group discussion made with beekeepers, the none participation of women in beekeeping were due to fear of honey bees sting and not have enough time to be involved in beekeeping due to their responsibility to do much of the household activities. The finding of this result is similar with the findings of Sisay et al. (2015) and Shibru et al. (2016) who reported 100% of the interviewed beekeepers in Jigjiga zone and Gambella Zuria and Godere woreda were all male headed households. Moreover, this finding also agrees with the reports of Hartmann (2004) as cited by Getachew (2018), who stated that traditionally beekeeping has been considered mainly as men’s job in Ethiopia. Highly significant (P < 0.001) difference was observed across agro-ecologies in relation to educational status of respondents. Differences observed in beekeeping experience might be responsible to influence the attitude and adoption of new beekeeping technologies (Hussien et al., 2015). The overall average farmland holding of the respondents was 1.27 ± 0.06 hectares. This result is comparable with the mean national landholding (1-1.5 ha) (CSA, 2017).
The primary means of livelihood in the study areas was mixed crop-livestock farming system. Crop production, livestock production and beekeeping were ranked as first, 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. Besides, trade and other off-farm activities such as weaving, irrigation, fish production and carpentry were also available means to support their subsistence livelihood. This indicates the possibility of keeping honeybees’ side by side along with on-farm and other off-farm activities.
The study revealed that almost all (96.8%) of the interviewed beekeepers owned traditional beehive and kept their colony in it. Similar to the current study, Bekele et al. (2017) stated that, the majority (98.26%) of the beekeepers in Bale Zone practiced traditional production system and only few (1.36%) beekeepers started using modern beekeeping practice. Colony and apiary inspection are very crucial to protect honeybee colonies from different natural risks and enemies such as pests, predators, diseases and chemical poisoning (Abebe, 2017). The study revealed that most of the beekeepers used swarm catching to establish their foundation stock. This is due to the fact that farmers could catch colonies easily when reproductive swarming is active. This finding agreed with the reports of Bekele (2017), Kiros and Tsegay (2017) and Dinku (2018) who indicated that majority of beekeepers started beekeeping through swarm catching in Bale zone, Jimma and Illubabor zone, and Sidama Zones, respectively.
Based on the input used and their management practices, two types of beekeeping practices were mainly used for honey production in the district. These are local (traditional) and modern (frame) beehive beekeeping. The traditional beekeeping was practiced in two forms, traditional forest beekeeping in which beehives were hanged on trees with numerous branches in forest without any management employed for bees and bee products, while traditional back yard beekeeping was practiced around homestead with relatively better management provided to bee colonies as compared to forest beekeeping. Regarding modern beekeeping practice, the adoption rate of modern hive was very low due to lack of credit facilities to buy inputs, shortage in supply of beehive accessories, lack of knowledge on how to operate the box hive and weak beekeeping extension services and lack of intervention on beekeeping by government and non-governmental organizations in the study area.
The average colony holding was 4.76 ± 1.78 per head whereas the average honey production from traditional hive was 5.81 ± 0.09 kg/hive/year (Table 5). Highly significant (p < 0.01) difference was observed in mean colony holding in both traditional and modern beehives across the three agro-ecologies. This might be due to favourable weather which supports the growth of diverse honey bee plants in the lowland areas (Table 5). Agreed with this, comparable finding reported by Bekele et al. (2017) stated that the average colony holding is 6.26 ± 0.92 colonies per head in Bale zone. However, the current study result was by far lower than the average colony holding observed in the Afar region (10.08 colonies per household) (Gebrehaweria et al., 2018) and Jimma and Illubabor Zone of Oromia region (10.7 ± 4.3 colonies per head) (Kiros and Tsegay, 2017). The current study also indicated that, the average honey yield from modern beehive was 20.05 ± 0.31 kg/hive/year whereas the average colony holding per head was 5.20 ± 6.98 colonies (Table 5). The overall average honey productivity per beehive in traditional and modern beehives was 5.81 ± 0.09 kg and 20.05 ± 0.31kg, respectively (Table 6). Similar to this result, in the same zone of different districts, Nebiyu and Melesse (2013) reported that the average honey yield per year per beehive was 5.88 ± 1.96 and 20.64 ± 4.96 kg for traditional and modern beehives, respectively.
The total honey yield from both traditional hive and modern hives have revealed undulating trend across the five consecutive years (Fig. 2) but generally confirmed the decreasing trend of honey yield in traditional beehives. Honey yield achieved better performance in the years 2016 and 2017 due to better rainfall distribution, availability of ample bee forages and suitable climatic conditions for honeybees. Considering the trend of total honey yield in both hives, it is also showed decreasing from 7469 kg in the year to 7336 in the year 2018. Similarly, the total honeybee colony size across the last five years in both traditional and modern beehives showed decreasing trend due to multitude of reasons among which irresponsible utilization of agrochemicals, absconding, lack of bee forage and pests and predators were found to be the most limiting factors. In line with this result, Dinku (2018) reported that majority (78.8%) of beekeepers in Sidama zone responded the decreasing trend of honeybee colonies over the past year due to indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals, shortages of bee forages and pests and predators. Similarly, Alemu (2015) noted that majority (84.9%) of the beekeepers in South Wollo and Waghimra Zones of Amhara region responded decreasing trend in the number of honeybee colonies and their products from time to time due to the availability and occurrence of various threatening factors which had an adverse effect on honeybee health and their production potentials. According to this author, presence of pests and predators, poor agrochemicals application on field crops and lack of bee forage as a result of deforestation were the main reasons (threatening factors) for the colony decreasing trends.
The study result indicated that majority of the beekeeper kept their hives at backyard indicating that backyard beekeeping is the most common practice of honey production in the study areas. Agreed with the findings of Alemu (2015) and Haftu & Gezu (2014) who reported that the beekeepers at each of their respective study districts kept majority of their colonies around the backyards of their homestead. The main reasons for beehive placement or apiary selection were close supervision, controlling from theft, and availability of bee flora. Similar findings were reported by Yetimwork (2015) and Abebe (2017). Almost all beekeepers reported overcrowding of honeybee colonies as the major cause for the incidence of swarming. Similarly, absconding was also common problem in the study area which is caused by shortage of bee forage, poor utilization of agrochemicals, honeybee pests and enemies.
Shortage of bee forage during dearth period, absconding pests and predators, risky application of agrochemicals were among major constraints of beekeeping ranked in order of severity. The availability of huge number of bee colonies, existence of ample melliferous plants that provide pollen and nectar, availability of tourist attraction sites near to the study area, strong emphasis from government of Ethiopia on beekeeping sector were available. Therefore, there are huge opportunities and potentials so as to exploit the huge beekeeping potential of the study area.