Honey production potential of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) in Karak and Kohat, Pakistan

Abstract

Honeybees are present in all parts of the world except extreme Polar Regions and are considered among social insects living in the form of colonies. Colony is made by different types of individuals like drones, workers and queen performing various activities within a colony. The current study was conducted to find out amount of honey production in the bee farms located in districts Kohat and Karak during 2011-2014 as these districts are ideal localities for the rearing of honey bees for honey production. These two districts having rich honey bee host plants particularly Ziziphus jujuba (Berry) and Acacia modesta (Palosa) are present in abundance. Results show that the highest honey production was found in Terawal Banda (5.20 kg/colony) followed by Hassan Banda (5 kg/colony) and Darmalok (5.08 kg/colony) while lowest range of honey production (2 - 3.8 kg/colony) was observed in various localities in district Kohat during 2011-2014. Similarly, in district Karak, Ahmad Abad was acknowledged the maximum honey producing area as in this zone considerable amount of honey production was reported. Interestingly the increase in honey yield was observed higher in district Karak as compared with district Kohat during 2011-2014. Overall annual honey productions seem to be not uniform in all the regions in two districts at the time of the study. The two studied areas (Karak and Kohat) in north-west of Pakistan have a great potential of honey production. Additionally, introducing the modern apicultural techniques can increase the average honey production in the mentioned areas.