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

form of top-bar hive may be one step towards promoting the role of women in beekeepingdevelopment. In addition, placing of hives at suitable location for women has to be developedand tested with users at local condition (Adebabay et al, 2008).4.2.15 Honey production and seasonThe amount of honey produced from one bee hive per year varies from places to places, which inmost cases is determined by the existences of plenty pollen and nectar source plants and the levelof management & input. The maximum amount of honey harvested from traditional, top bar andframe hive were 16, 18 kg and 25 kg respectively and the minimum records from all three typeof hives in the study areas were 3 kg, 7 kg and 8kg (Table 19). These results are indicators of theexistence of room for increasing performances of these beehives through good managementpractices coupled with favorable beekeeping environment. This also notes us that we are stillbellow the line of productivity what the beekeeping industry can perform. Based on the results ofthe current study, the average amount of honey harvested from traditional, top bar and framehive were 8.94 kg, 10.66 kg and 15.56 kg per hive respectively (Table 19). The honey valueobtained from traditional hive is higher than the national average yield (5 kg) and the resultreported by Workneh et al., (2007) that states the average amount of honey harvested pertraditional hive in West, South West and North Shewa zones to be 6.2 kg.Table 19: Average Productivity of different hivesTotal sample (n=120)Hive Types Min. Max. Mean S.DTraditional hive 3.00 16.00 8.94 2.84137Topbar hive 7.00 18.00 10.66 3.98330Modern hive 8.00 25.00 15.56 4.38584The sample respondents reported to harvest their honey in one distinct harvesting season, that is,from October to December (Table 20). Based on the results of this study, in the district honeywas harvested once or twice, and in some cases even three times which indicates the presence ofhigh potentiality of the area (Table 20). Of the total respondent beekeepers, 22.0%, 42.5% and44.7% reported that they harvest honey only once in a given production year from traditional, top61