COMPARATIVE PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS AND RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY OF BEEKEEPING USING WOODEN AND POLY HIVE IN SOME SELECTED AREAS OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

Poly hive provides a superior environment to raise and keep the honeybee population vigorous due to its high-tech internal facilities and sanitary system. Information on the profitability of poly hive is needed to encourage beekeepers to adopt it. The study was conducted to examine the profitability of beekeeping using wooden hive and modern poly hive technology and resource use efficiency of beekeeping in some selected areas Sirajganj, Gazipur and Satkhira districts of Bangladesh. Besides, sociodemographic

profile and the major problems of beekeeping in the study area were also investigated. The study area was selected purposively on the basis of intensive cultivation of bee plants. A total of 60 beekeepers were selected using stratified random sampling technique to conduct farm level survey with pre-tested questionnaire. After analysing the data, gross return, net return and gross margin were found to be Tk. 11019.26 , Tk. 4082.45 and Tk. 8660.5 per hive per year respectively for wooden hive, and Tk. 27373.34, Tk. 19838.42, and Tk. 24736.14per hive per year respectively for poly hive. Total cost of beekeeping was Tk. 6936.81 and Tk. 7534.92 per hive for wooden and poly hive respectively. Undiscounted BCR were 1.59 and 3.63 for wooden and poly hive. Thus, it was found that beekeeping was profitable and it was very efficient and suitable in poly hive in comparison to traditional wooden hives. From production function analysis, it was observed that labor cost, transportation cost, insecticide cost, equipment cost, hive cost, rent cost and poly hive have significant effect on return. Resource use efficiency analysis indicated that labor cost, medicine cost, equipment cost, and extraction cost were under used in the study area. Higher cost of modern hives and accessories was found as their most severe (first ranked) constraint followed by some other constraints like lack of skilled labor, lack of capital, marketing problem etc.