Floral phenology and pollen potential of honey bee plants in NorthEast dry land areas of Amhara region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Beekeeping serves as a source of additional cash income for hundreds of thousands of farmer beekeepers in the country and plays a significant role in conserving the natural resources and contributes to the globe through environmental protection. Furthermore, even if the potential and success in beekeeping development is dependent first and foremost on the type and quantity of flora available, botanical composition of natural vegetation varies significantly. This study was conducted targeting identification and documentation of major honeybee floras, their phenology and pollen potential in the study area. For this, three representative agroecologies, respective sites and localities were selected using stratified random sampling procedures. A total of 120 Beekeepers were also purposively selected and interviewed to collect relevant information. Density and frequency of flowering plants was determined using appropriate vegetation determination techniques. Pollen was collected using pollen traps and was analyzed and verified for its traceability using appropriate mellissopalynological procedures and references. Trapped pollen analysis data were also traced back to plant species level. The study has revealed that the families diversity, directly attributed to the species diversity, in sample plots were generally higher in higher altitudes of the study area and deceasing towards lower altitudes. The density of the plant species per plot were higher for herbaceous plant species represented by plant families Pedaliaceae, Asteraceae and Papilionaceae. As a tip, 73.33% of the flowering plants identified from the trapped pollen were found to be propagated by their seeds indicating the point of entrance for rehabilitation. the highest amount of pollen was collected from those plants categorized as very good in their use to quality honey production (46.23%), in their acceptance by the bees (56.62%) and in their abundance (48.4%) comprising 22.22%, 26.67%, 31.11% and 28.89% of the total honey source plants identified throughout the study period respectively. Moreover, a total of 418.45gm of pollen (36.11%, 39.08% and 20.98% from herbaceous, shrub and tree species respectively) was collected by honeybees during the study period. It was found that 12 plant species (contributing 69.24% of the pollen) have been confirmed to be major pollen source plants of the area. Generally, we would like to recommend that wise use and rehabilitation of these potentially identified bee plant species shall be considered in attempting beekeeping development and environmental protection.