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

4.3 Processing and Marketing of Hive Products in Bure DistrictAccording to the result, 73.3% of the respondents were straining honey before marketingwhereas 26.7% of them had no practice of straining honey. The sample respondents believe thatstraining of honey improves its quality, and will be sold at high price (78.7%), satisfies theconsumer (3.4%), comfortable during eating (6%) and helps to produce high amount of beeswax(12.4%). The reason of respondents for not straining honey was, lack of straining materials(21.2%), lack of knowledge (36.4%), amount of honey will be reduced when strained (12.1%)and lack of material and knowledge (21.2%). From those which have practice of straining honey,32.6% used honey extractor, 7.9% used cloth, 5.6% sieve materials, 3.4% simple decantation andthe rest 50.6% simply crush and squeeze the honey comb and remove the floating impurities byhands. According to the results of this survey, the mean price of strained honey is 22.17 Birr/kgwith minimum 18 and maximum 28 Birr/kg.In general, in the study area, processing of crude honey into table honey and the crude beeswaxinto pure form is not practiced by the beekeepers. It was reported that very often, only fewbeekeepers collect crude beeswax from their apiary and used as a candle light at home or givethe produce as an offer to Orthodox churches. Consequently, beeswax was not often harvestedfor market in the study areas, but only few farmers do so for home use. The major reason waslack of knowledge of its use (57.1%), lack of processing skill how to harvest it (21.4%), absenceof demand in the local market (14.3%) and lack of processing material (7.1%).Producers grade their honey for sale based on personal evaluation, but there was no givenstandards for quality differentiation. About 60.5% of the sample farmers do grade their honey,but this was very low because of absence of clear market incentive.The major product of beekeeping sold to market in Bure district was honey (97.5%), bee colony(46.7%), bee hive (8.3%) and bee wax (5.8%).Color of honey determines the utilization of honey (medicinal, tej making, table honey makingetc. (Table 24) and the market price. Regarding the price of honey, white and yellow honeyfetches the higher price (Table 25).70