Evaluation of Transitional and Modern Hives for Honey Productivity in Buffer Zone of Chebera-Churchura Park, Konta Special District of Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was designed to evaluate transitional and modern beehive on productivity of honey yield under smallholder beekeeper. A total of 16 honeybee colonies which had similar strength were used. Honey yield data from each hive per harvesting season was measured immediately after harvesting.  The collected data were analyzed by using GLM analysis of variance procedure. There was investigated significant effect among modern and transitional beehive for productivity of honey yield. The potential honey yield productivity of the modern hive (19.78kg/ hive) was higher than transitional hive (10.42 kg/hive). In addition, the result of variance analysis indicated that year of harvesting and season of harvesting had significant effect (p > 0.05) on honey yield per hive. But, all main effects investigated had no significant interaction effect (p > 0.05) on honey yield per hive. . It is therefore the effort should be made to use modern beehive as an alternative technology in the areas and promoting the adoption of modern bee hives to improve the livelihood of beekeepers

Keywords: honeybee colonies, evaluation, modern beehives, transitional beehives, honey yield