A CASE STUDY ON IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND PESTICIDES ON HONEYBEES IN BHIMSHEN THAPA RURAL MUNICIPALITY-07, GORKHA
Description
Beekeeping is among the livelihood development strategies likely to be affected by climate variability. Variations in climatic variables affect the productivity of bees because bee activities (honey production) depend on temperature and rainfall. The study focused on the relationship between climate variability, human activities and honeybee’s population of that community. Survey research design was applied and a structured questionnaire administered to the four farmers who actively participated on beekeeping from long time back to present. Secondary data was retrieved from the relevant institution, journals, books and publication. Rainfall and temperature for the period of 2016 to 2021 was analyzed using excel. The rainfall has somehow decreased and fluctuated that is annual cumulative rainfall has rapidly escalated from 2015 to 2017. The peak rainfall data was obtained as 5406.54 mm. The minimum range of rainfall data was obtained in 2019 as 2461.3 mm. Moreover, the intensity of temperature has decreased steadily, that is the lowest average temperature was recorded in 2021, 2020 and 2019 i.e. 21.16, 21.08 and 21.580C respectively. The overall temperature slightly declined from 2015 to 2021. The maximum temperature range was 25.660C in 2016. From the study, declining in population of honeybees may be due to washing out of flower’s nectar by unusual rainfall, introduction of unknown disease, lacking of technical knowledge, unavailability of proper field for resource or forage, migration of honey bees, increasing use of pesticides (whole colony or more than 1000 in a numbers suddenly died due to lethal effect of pesticides in beehive when they use pesticides in nearby crops), maximum appearance of predators like hornet, spider, Pine martens, parasites, wasp, moth, etc. Therefore, there is evidence to suggest variation in climate and use of pesticides has had negative impacts on honeybee’s status and honey production in Bhimsen Thapa Rural Municipality-07, Gorkha. The study recommended awareness and giving the proper meteorological data to the farmers to enhance preparedness and give them modern farming knowledge. Key words: Apiculture, Climate variability, Bee migration, Forage and Phenology
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The study applied a general survey research design. Data was collected through administration of questionnaire and interviews. Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were obtained through administering questionnaires. Secondary data were obtained from Department of hydrology and meteorology, worldweatheronline portal (mean annual rainfall and temperature data from 2015 to 2021), municipality website portal, previous studies and literature review.