Economic Sustainability Assessment of a Beekeeping Farm in Hungary

Aliz Feketéné Ferenczi (), István Szűcs and Andrea Bauerné Gáthy
Additional contact information
Aliz Feketéné Ferenczi: Faculty of Economics and Business, Institute of Applied Economics Studies, University of Debrecen, Böszörményi Str. 138, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
István Szűcs: Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, Böszörményi Str. 138, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary
Andrea Bauerné Gáthy: Faculty of Economics and Business, Institute of Economics and World Economy, University of Debrecen, Böszörményi Str. 138, 4032 Debrecen, Hungary

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: In Hungary, beekeeping is a relatively small-scale sector within the livestock sector, but it is essential for maintaining biodiversity and rural employment. In order to provide ecosystem services such as pollination by honey bees, apiaries need to be economically sustainable, and it is therefore of strategic importance that beekeepers can continue their activities. Based on this, this article’s main objective is the economic analysis of Hungarian honey production, which enables the evaluation of the cost–benefit relationships, production volume and the efficiency of the operation. The authors’ analysis is based on a Hungarian apiary with 300 bee colonies, which also engages in migration and produces a significant amount of acacia honey. The model farm produces several types of honey due to migratory beekeeping, and its average yield reaches 60 kg/bee colony/year, which the authors calculated based on the average purchase prices in 2021. Based on the farm model, the analysis showed that 71 bee colonies and 4253 kg of honey production reached the profitability threshold.

Keywords: beekeeping; economic indicators; honey production; Hungary; the technology of beekeeping; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/6/1262/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/6/1262/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:6:p:1262-:d:1173757

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().