Abstract
The study was conducted in Gondar Zuria District, North Gondar to assess honeybee disease, enemies and their control mechanisms. For this study three peasant associations were selected through purposive sampling. From each peasant association 20 respondents were selected by systematic random sampling and data collected using semi-structured questioner, observation; and were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result revealed that disease like Nosema (43.3%), Chalk brood (30.0%), Varroa mites (8.3%) and bee paralysis (18.3%) and from enemies such as ant (43.3%), bird (16.7%), termites (28.3%) and wildcat (11.7%) were found in the study area, However, farmers use different control mechanism like cleaning the hive, keeping the colony strong, putting of ash on their nest and regular inspection of the hive the apiary site should be free from those chemical’s like insecticide and herbicide sprayed on foraging flowers and beekeepers should take some measures or negotiate with scrap growers and problem is observed poor traditional system of management like watering feeding and health care management most of the beekeepers is traditionally. There are three types of beekeeping systems; traditional (80.0%), transitional (16.7%) and modern (3.3%), but traditional hive is more affected by disease than other. All of the respondent in the study area there are number of challenges for honeybee. In general honey bee production potential of farmers in the area is constrained by various challenges especially by bee diseases and enemies. The most important bee disease in the area was found Nosema and the prime enemies are ant those impede productivity of honey bee in the area. There should be given good extension service and sustainable awareness creation through various means of incentives to empower beekeepers for controlling of bee diseases and enemies by coordinating their indigenous knowledge with the scientific methods.
Highlights
Ethiopia has the largest honeybee population and owns big potential of honey production
From the total respondents 85% were male and 15% were female. This implies that there is low level of female participation in bee keeping in the study area based on FGD and key informant due to traditional beliefs and females give more emphasis for household activity rather than keeping bees
Of the total sample households married 83.3%, 13.3% and (3.3%) are married, single and divorced respectively. This indicates that majority of the sample respondents are get married this might have effect on honey bee production effort of the household due to sharing of labour, resource and effort
Summary
Ethiopia has the largest honeybee population and owns big potential of honey production. Owing to its varied ecological and climatic condition, Ethiopia is the largest honey producer in Africa and 10th largest honey producer all over the world. There is a considerable amount of bee wax product. The total honey produced in the country only small amount is marketed [1]. There has longstanding beekeeping practice and endowed with huge apicultural resource and has been an integral part of other agricultural activity, where about one million households keep honeybees. More than 5.15 million hived honeybee populations are in the country [2]
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