ASSESSMENT OF BEEKEEPING PRACTICES AND PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HONEY PRODUCED IN YEM ZONE, CENTRAL ETHIOPIA REGION, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Ethiopia is home to a rich in honeybee foraging flora and the highest Africa’s honeybee population due to its unique ecological and climatic circumstances, with more than 10 million bee colonies. This study was aimed at generating research-based information on the characterization of beekeeping practices and quality analysis in Yem Zone, Central Ethiopia Region. Accordingly, from a total of 376 honey producers, a household interviews, field observation, and key informant discussions were used to gather relevant information from three potential districts. The three selected districts were; Deri zuria, Fofa and Toba districts, representing highland, midland and lowland agroecologies, respectively. Moreover, laboratory experiment on honey Physico-chemical analysis was conducted at Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine Post-harvest management laboratory. For the qualitative data, a chi-square test was employed to check the existence of significant associations between variables at a 95% significance level using SPSS software. While, honey quality parameters were analyzed using the GLM procedure of SAS software version 9.4. As a result, among the total participantsˌ 98.7% were male headed households while 1.3% of them were female headed. About 52.8% of beekeepers have 29-45 years of honeybee rearing experience followed by who have above 45 years (27.2%) and16-18years(18ˌ1%),8-15years(1,9%) beekeeping experience . About 58.7% of farmers own initial bee colony by catching swarms followed by inherited from their parents (36.0%), buying from other farmers (2.9%) and few farmers get a starting colony by purchasing from local markets. During this study, farmers mentioned several trees used for hanging bee hives in their areas; however, Warka(cordia vasta)(41.1%), Sholla (Ficus sycomorus)(27.1%), and Wanza(cordia africana) (24.0%) were identified as the top three trees for hanging their bee hives. Regarding catching of bee colonies, commonly farmers install bees by hanging hives (92.5%) and collect swarms from forest or farmland areas. Significantly higher (80.5%) proportion of farmers harvest their honey product from October to December followed by April to June (18.1%). Moreover, plastic containers (75.2%) were commonly used to store honey followed by clay materials (8.8%) and metallic (9.1%) containers. 59.2% of farmers reported that they harvest 5-7kg of honey followed by 3-4 kg (40.3%) of honey per year from a traditional hive. Likewise, 44.3%, 32.2% and 22.9% of the survey member harvest 11-12kg, 7- 10kg and 13-15kg of honey from a transitional hive, respectively. Similarly, from a frame hive about 10-20kg of honey was harvested. The customized practices by farmers to identify the xiii physical quality of their honey were based on color (56.5%) of the honey followed by taste (30.4%) of the honey. The major reported constraints encountering beekeepers in the study districts were low honey production, shortage and diminishing of bee foraging plants, drought, pests and predators. Furthermore, the mean values of physicochemical analysis of honey samples for all parameters shown a significant (p < 0.05) difference across the study areas. Accordingly, the overall mean values were 34.06 meq/kg, 3.92, 79.43 brix, 0.07%, 0.43, 18.35% and 9.25 Pas for Titratable acidity, pH, Total soluble solids, Ash, Water acidity, Moisture content and Viscosity, respectively. The observed quality findings were in an acceptable range of a quality honey. Thus, the study provided guiding baseline information for further honey production development interventions in the study areas. However, the reported major constraints should be solved to exploit the existing high potentials. Furthermore, further researches on physicochemical and microbial quality analysis were recommended to verify the best quality of the honey in the study areas, which we have not considered some parameters due to budget limitations.