Assessment of Honey Production under Box Hive Technology in Selected Local Government Areas of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was undertaken to assess honey production under box hive technology in Kaduna state, Nigeria”. The specific objectives were socio economic characteristics, profitability of honey production, the resource use efficiency of honey production. A purposive sampling technique was used to purposively select 139 bee farmers from three local government areas namely, Giwa, Kagarko and Kachia. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Farm budgeting techniques, Cobb Douglas regression model and resource use efficiency ratio. Result revealed that majority of the bee farmers in the study area were male and within the age bracket of 40-49 years with a mean age of 44. The average household size was 6. About 60.4% of the bee farmers had no formal education, indicating that they are largely illiterates. The average years of farming experience was 15years. About 52.5% of the farmers had contact with extension agents, about 61% had 13 beehives on their farm land. The calculated net farm income of beekeeping in the study area was N13020415, also the returns to naira invested of 2.46 implies that for every N 1 invested in bee farming , a profit of N 1.46 was generated. The regression model shows the fitness of the model with an R2 value of 0.6338. The results showed that the number of breed (bees) used was significant at 1%. The resource use efficiency ratio result revealed that labor, box hive were over utilized, land was under- utilized while the number of larvae was optimally utilized in the study area. Some of the problems encountered by bee farmers in the study area include pesticide and insecticide application close to the apiary, poor road network, theft, problem of securing agricultural loans and excess smoking. From the findings it was concluded that beekeeping is profitable in the study area and can serve as source of income to households. It is recommended that more extension agent should be trained on modern beekeeping so that they can disseminate beekeeping information to the farmers.