Honeybee Production and Marketing Systems, Constraints - IPMS ...

people to look more deeply at the factors upon which food production, health and aestheticaspects of the environment depend (Martin, 1976).It is also alerting the far-sighted people to conserve resources. In such context, bees are worldresources of such great significance in human welfare. In short bees have a high degree ofadaptation to a wide range of environment, are important parts of farming systems, and do notcontribute to land degradation and ecological imbalances.2.5 Overview of Beekeeping in EthiopiaIn Ethiopia, beekeeping has been a tradition since long before other farming systems(Gezahegne, 1996). Even though it is one of the important and the oldest farming activities in thecountry, there are no available records, which confirm when and where beekeeping was firststarted. However, the Hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt refer to Abyssinia (ancient name ofEthiopia), as source of honey and beeswax and Abyssinia has been known for its beeswax exportto Egypt for centuries when other items were not exported.It is, thus, assumed that the keeping of bees in baskets may have started about 5000 years ago inthe northern regions along with the early settlements. No countries in the world may have ancientbeekeeping as Ethiopia (Fichtl and Admassu, 1994; Gezahegne, 2001b). Moreover, the oldestbasket hive in the International bee museum is from Ethiopia.2.5.1 Geographical Distribution of Ethiopian HoneybeesAs far as morphomertic analyses of Ethiopian honeybees are concerned, Smith (1961) reportedApis Mellifera monticola from the Ethiopian plateaus and later, Ruttner (1975) reported thepresence of A.m. scutellata and A.m. jemenitica. Ayalew (1990) suggested the existence of fivehoneybee races: Apis mellifera jemenitica (in eastern lowlands), A.m. monticola (in the southernmountains), A.m. litorea (in the extreme western low lands), A.m. adansonii (in the southernmid-altitude areas) and A.m. abyssinica (central plateau and southwestern parts of tropical11