On the Use of Multi-criteria Decision Making Model for Selecting the Important Criteria in Meliponiculture

Abstract

Meliponiculture is an activity of raising stingless bees to obtain bee products, mainly honey. Honey production by bees varies depending on various factors which also affect its amount and quality. Meliponiculturists practiced beekeeping in many ways to maximise honey production and its quality such as by considering location of beekeeping, apiary, flowers and plants. Nevertheless, there are many criteria that should be considered in meliponicultures in analysing its importance in producing good quality and quantity of honey. As it involves multiple conflicting criteria, different multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques can be effectively applied to solve such type of problem. Thus, this paper applied MCDM techniques namely as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and Weighted Sum Method (WSM) to rank the criteria. A set of questionnaires with nine criteria is distributed to meliponiculturists. The criteria were selected based on previous studies of apiculture and opinions from meliponiculture experts from Mardi Alor Setar. The criteria are (1) flowers and plants, (2) water and hydrology, (3) land features, (4) apiary, (5) human activities, (6) pest, (7) wind and humidity, (8) road network, and (9) temperature. The results were analysed based on individual and group ranking. Both individual and group results provide a slightly different ranking by using the MCDM techniques. This study provides an insight on the factors which affect the honey production and its quality in meliponiculture industry which could help optimizing the honey production.