Factors Influencing Beekeeping Practices in Sikonge, Tanzania

Abstract

Introduction Beekeeping is a common rural based economic activity in the world (Abebe, 2007; Adgaba et al., 2014; Bekuma, 2018) and has long been practised primarily for gathering honey which is an important bee product in many societies (Lee, 2014). Recently, great potential of beekeeping has been recognized as it is not only the source of honey but also other important bee products. These include bee wax, bee venom and bee pollen (Tutuba & Vanhaverbeke, 2018). Beekeeping has been greatly acknowledged to have functions such as improving environment and as an alternative source of improving people’s livelihood (John, 2014). Beekeeping has gradually evolved from traditional to commercial practice. Thus, commercialized beekeeping is viewed to be an economic occupation involving application of new innovation and improved technologies in management of honey bee colonies, apiary management, forage, production and product management (Tutuba & Vanhaverbeke, 2018). Beekeeping is more than honey hunting; rather it is the modern art and science of managing honey bees for receiving their commercial potential (Abebe, 2007; Sharma & Das, 2018; Tutuba & Vanhaverbeke, 2018). It is still claimed that the sector has not received enough attention in many tropical developing countries (Adgaba et al., 2014; Bekuma, 2018). Tropical developing countries have great potential for beekeeping because of having many bee colonies. In addition, the tropical areas are endowed with massive forests, which produce forage for honey bees to produce good quality and large quantity of honey. However, both good quality and quantity of honey is affected by the level of technology such as innovation in apiary setting, proper management of beehives and production process (Bett, 2017).