Beekeeping in the Niger Delta Area (NDA) of Nigeria is a sideline
economic activity most especially in the rural and semi-urban communities. The
production performance revealed that the average honey yield was found to be
higher for the users of modern technology than for users of traditional
technology. The overall average honey yield per colony was 12.35kg for users of
modern technology and 6.72kg for users of traditional technology during the
period of years 2002 to 2004. These figures were under World average honey
yield of 20kg because modern beekeeping was still at an infant stage in the study
area. The production cost for users of traditional technology (N 9,710.79) was
about 42% of users of modern technology cost (N 23,357.71). The net returns of
users of traditional technology (N 5,964.97) were about 15% of the users of
modern technology (N 39,319.22). For the beekeeping to have meaningful
impact on the well-being of the NDA there is need for the users of traditional
technology to embrace and adopt modern beekeeping technology in totality.
Analysis of costs and returns revealed that fixed cost accounted for
23.15% of the total cost while the operating expenses accounted for 76.85%. The
net return per beekeeper was N 31,981.29 ($290.74) per annum which was even
slightly above Nigerian average per capital income of $280.00 during the period
under review. The average rate of returns of this enterprise was as well better
than some agricultural enterprises in the NDA with the value of 163%. In short,
the production performance of the beekeeping in the Niger Delta Area of Nigeriawas economically viable and should be boosted through formulation of a good
policy by government at all levels.