The Financial Analysis of Apiculture Profitability in Bangladesh

Aims: Apiculture is one of the potential businesses in Bangladesh. This study tries to examine, the profitability of apiculture practice by using financial analysis of investment costs and benefits.

Study Design: To evaluate the accurate and particular investment on beekeeping, entire data were categorized into two major sections on the basis of bee species Apis mellifer and Apis cerana. However, overall investment costs and benefits also analyzed to measure overall profitability.

Place and Duration of Study: Entire study data were collected from secondary sources and field questionnaire survey in Tangail District, Bangladesh in November 2014.

Methodology: Standard financial techniques were used to evaluate the investment costs and returns of beekeeping business, the sensitivity analysis was made by using net present value, internal rate of return, return of investment and benefit-costs ratio. A correlation of benefit and cost factors were simulating the effects of cost factors on beekeeping outcome. The ranking of beekeeping limitation was made on the basis of respondent opinion.

Results: The socio-economic status of beekeeper indicates that most of the beekeeper were young, lower educated, obtain basic beekeeping training from NGO and considered beekeeping as a part-time job. The sensitivity analysis shows that Apis mellifera bee species have a higher IRR than Apis cerana for a particular size of a beehive. The larger beehive obtains larger IRR, ROI, and B/C ratio. However, the average IRR is higher for Apis cerana (185.60), the bigger number of large beehive of Apis cerana contributing larger outcome. The correlation of beekeeping benefits and cost factors suggest that, overall profit is highly correlated with beehive colony, wooden box, labor and transportation cost.

Conclusion: Proper beekeeping training and effective marketing of honey and other beekeeping byproducts is highly desired by the beekeepers. Government concern and NGOs involvement is mandatory to improve beekeeper training, marketing, and overall beekeeping business, which could contribute to the socio-economic development of marginal farmers of Bangladesh.