Honey Bee Products Marketing Practices: Challenges and Opportunities in and around Maksegnit Town, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted in Amhara region Maksegnit town north Gondar Ethiopia with the objective of investigating honey bee products marketing practice; opportunities and constraints. The data was collected from 40 households from four PAs by using pretested semi structure questionnaire. The collected data revealed that the major products of honey bee are honey (67.5%) and the rest (32.5%) colony itself. The major reason of keeping bees in the study area is for income source. The value obtained by ranking index revealed that middlemen, tej (a mead or honey wine) houses and retailer are the three major honey buyers with the index values of 0.30, 0.24 and 0.21, respectively. The price of honey is majorly governed by quality and color of the honey with index values of 0.4 and 0.3, respectively. The highest and the lowest price of honey in the study area was found to be 133.50 ± 6.222 and 69.25 ± 12.483 Ethiopian birr (ETB) for white and black honey, respectively. Lack of road, lack of materials for measuring the quantity of honey and the variation in the color of the honey were found to be the three major constraints of honey marketing with the index value of 0.16 of 0.143 and 0.141, respectively. The major challenge for marketing of bee colony is unavailability of organized marketing place. The Increment in number of unemployed youth, increment in price of honey and colony and the high demand of honey and colony in the area are the three major opportunities available to be engaged in beekeeping sector in the study area. To alleviate challenges of bee product and colony marketing, the government should provide important inputs and awareness should be created for the farmers.