GENERAL REVIEW OF BEEKEEPING IN EASTERN BLACK SEA REGION

According to beekeeping Registration System for 2012, number of apiary establishments having 50 and more colonies were detected to be 6270. A survey regarding these apiaries was performed with 209 beekeepers at their location with random sampling method.

Average age of the beekeepers in the region is 52,3, having 24,3 years of experience and 101,6 colonies on average. The beekeepers are generally satisfied with the colony performances. Production of product diversity other than honey is realized by limited number of beekeepers and in limited amounts. Our beekeepers generally produce queens of their colonies by themselves, and change once in two years. 9% of our beekeepers still let their colonies change their queens upon their own desire. Despite the fact that 24,5% of the beekeepers in the region use commercial queen, the rate of queen use per colony is quite low. In general, beekeeping is performed as side income in overall Region, except Ordu province.

Productivity of Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon, Rize, Artvin, Gümüşhane and Bayburt provinces are respectively as: 38.54, 16.32, 14.36, 11.45, 17.01, 16.82, 15.00 kg/colony. Winter losses (%) 9, 10, 10, 9, 3, 15, 6. Swarming tendencies of colonies: (%): 5, 6, 9, 9, 5, 7, 7. Reproduction by means of splitting colonies: (%): 12, 31, 22, 12, 30, 13, 30. Rate of use of queen from commercial establishments (%): 25, 14, 17, 37, 8, 0, 70. Tendency towards product diversity other than honey (%): 6, 7, 33, 0, 17, 61, 10. Amounts of sugar used in supplementary feeding (in spring and autumn periods) were determined as: 7.7, 10.8, 9.1, 7.8, 8.3, 15.0, 6.0 kg/colony. Migratory beekeeping is common in the region (95%), and Erzurum Province is the mostly preferred place for migratory beekeeping. 5% of the beekeepers in the region transfer their colonies to two and more production areas. Keywords : Survey Beekeeper, Honeybee, Eastern Black Sea