Authors : Ayoade Alabi Akande; Akeem Abolade Oyerinde; Toba Samuel Anjorin; Liadi Muideen Tella; Ismail Adeniran Aderolu
Volume/Issue : Volume 8 - 2023, Issue 8 - August
Google Scholar : https://bit.ly/3TmGbDi
Scribd : https://tinyurl.com/ya6d5kw2
DOI : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8272794
There is a growing need for additional
honeybee colonies to satisfy the demand for pollination
services and compensate for high colony mortality
through bush burning, vandalization and pesticide
poisoning. This study evaluates the preference of
different nucleus hive to the establishment of colony and
how to mitigate the associated pests and diseases in the
practice. This was carried out in the forest (7.50oN, 4.52
oE) and savanna (8.98 o N, 7.19 o E) agroecological zones
of Nigeria. The experiment at the two locations was
layout using Randomized Complete Design (RCBD),
data collected were analyzed using SPSS Version 22.Number of incoming bees that
clearly show the strength of the colony was higher in
wooden hive with 36.31/min, bamboo 33.40/min and
27.29/min in carton, followed by wooden and the least
was in carton colony weight, brood length, incidence of
pest and infestation of diseases as well as colony
abscondment rate at week intervals. A total number of
24 nucleus hives made from different low-cost model of
materials were deployed in the two agroecological zones.
The result shows that the bamboo and the wooden hives
gave similar result while carton were significantly
different from the two hives model earlier mentioned.
The findings from this study portrayed that bee farmers
in Nigeria can adopt the use of low-cost materials of
bamboo and carton to raise nucleus hives for
establishment of colony in modern beekeeping practice.
Keywords : Colony Establishment, Bamboo Carton and Wooden nuc Hives, Pests, Diseases.