Vol. 11, Special Issue 5 (2022)

Author(s):
Shubham Arya, Dr. Anil Kumar, Keshav Kumar and Dheeraj Kumar

Abstract:
Indian agriculture sector accounts for 17.32 per cent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) in financial year 2017-18 and provides employment to more than half of the total workforce of the country. Agriculture not only means the cultivation of land for crop production but also includes practices of allied activities such as livestock, poultry, beekeeping, sericulture etc. Beekeeping (or Apiculture) is one of such activities. Beekeeping is an agro based seasonal activity. It is currently one of the most widespread agricultural allied activities carried out throughout the world. Originally honey bees were mainly reared in traditional nets, bamboo holes, crevices of walls, wooden log, forest trees etc. and honey was extracted through crude method of squeezing the combs which resulted into destruction of bee colonies and deterioration of the quality of honey produced. At current time India ranks first in terms of number of beehive stocks followed by China in the World. The average annual production of honey worldwide was about 1.8 million MT during 2016-17. In Uttarakhand, beekeeping forms an integral part of small holder farming system and plays a significant role as source of additional cash income in subsistence farming. For different beekeeper categories the total cost incurred on beekeeping practices per unit hive was assessed. The share of fixed cost was 22.34 per cent, 21.13 per cent and 22.15 per cent in case of small, medium and large beekeepers, respectively. The share of variable cost to the total cost per hive was 77.66 per cent, 78.87 per cent and 77.84 per cent in case of small, medium and large beekeepers, respectively. An examination of returns from a unit hive led to the conclusion that 87.02 per cent of total income was obtained from honey production alone. Raise bee colonies constituted 10.19 per cent of total return while wax contributed about 2.88 per cent of the gross return. The return from a unit kg of honey was Rs. 83.97 and net return per hive over total cost was Rs. 199.65. The input to output ratio was 1.12. The contribution of honey to the gross return was maximum in case of small beekeepers followed by large beekeepers (87.19 per cent) while minimum for medium beekeepers (85.54 per cent).