**4. Economics of meliponiculture**

Traditional uses for stingless bee honey have been documented for a century, but the selling of stingless bee honey has become cost-effective only during the recent

**181**

**Figure 10.**

*Breakeven comparison of log and hive system [25].*

*Southeast Asian Meliponiculture for Sustainable Livelihood*

trouble and difficult to propagate in a large scale [26].

investment in Malaysia [25] and other Southeast Asian countries.

decade in many parts of the world. The price of stingless bee honey, compared to the honey from *Apis*, is relatively high at around US \$40 per liter in Brazil [24], US \$80 in Malaysia [25], and US \$45 in Thailand (Duangphakdee, unpublished data). Recently, meliponiculture has expanded in many parts of Southeast Asia where there are 45 potential stingless bee species [24]. Currently, the primary purpose of stingless bee beekeeping in Southeast Asia (SE Asia) is for pollination services. They are only now beginning to take root for honey production in Southern Asia (in India) and in SE Asia (Malaysia and the Philippines). Commercial meliponiculture has been intensively developed in Malaysia and the Philippines. In Thailand, as in Vietnam, local people still only use stingless bee honey for "medicinal purposes." Meliponiculture is just at an early state of commercialization. No standard practices have developed for meliponiculture yet. The major difficulty is that of collecting honey from a tree or subterranean nest. The honey harvest technique is still being developed, and it appears still that keeping stingless bees in hives is worth the

As demand for stingless bee honey is increasing, meliponiculture is getting more interest [25]. The following economic analysis is based on current markets in Malaysia. Two types of stingless bee hives were considered, based on logs (natural) and hives (artificial). Authors examined the investment cost and pricing of a small start-up with 30 colonies. The challenge to new investors was the increasing price of colonies and unpredictable return due to stolen logs, threats from overheating, pests, and parasites. The equivalent annual uniform cost (EAUC) index compares different investments in log and hive system. The study shows that revenue and operational cost are the same in both systems. Because the log type is a 40% cheaper investment, this has 22.7% higher EAUC value than a hive system for the 10 years of life cycle considered. However, both the log and the hive systems offer very good return with a margin exceeding 55%. In addition, the system reached breakeven after 8.35 months and 13.56 months with log and hive system, respectively (**Figure 10**). Meliponiculture is therefore economically viable enough to justify

The standard size for stingless bee hives has not yet been determined properly. The number of stingless bee keepers in Thailand has been expanding during the past two decades from 700 in 2014 [27] to 1500 in 2018 [28]. Most meliponikeepers are small-scale farms ranging from 20 to 50 hives. Chanthaburi and Trat provinces

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90344*

#### *Southeast Asian Meliponiculture for Sustainable Livelihood DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90344*

*Modern Beekeeping - Bases for Sustainable Production*

hive box are as follows (**Figure 8**):

new hive box next to the brood area.

**4. Economics of meliponiculture**

inside the log.

**Figure 9.**

the colony.

The steps for transferring a natural stingless bee colony in a log to an artificial

*A horizontal artificial hive of* Tetragonula pagdeni *is stacked on a four pod stand.*

1.Two opposite longitudinal incisions of the log using a chainsaw are made. This must be done carefully, because the sawing can injure the brood and food pots

2.The brood cluster is the first part to remove and transfer, because the mother queen and young workers are found in this area. The brood area is carefully cut and separated from the original nest by using a knife with a sharp, thin blade.

3.The honey and pollen pots are carefully transferred and put on the floor of the

4.Finding the mother queen is necessary to increase the success of transferring

5.The lid of the new hive box should be replaced to inhibit the workers from flying out, and then the new hive box is put near the original log to let the flying workers move to the new hive box. This procedure may take several hours.

6.After all bees are in the new box, the hive is moved to a suitable location. The box should be put on shelves or four pod stands to deter predators (**Figure 9**).

Traditional uses for stingless bee honey have been documented for a century, but the selling of stingless bee honey has become cost-effective only during the recent

**180**

decade in many parts of the world. The price of stingless bee honey, compared to the honey from *Apis*, is relatively high at around US \$40 per liter in Brazil [24], US \$80 in Malaysia [25], and US \$45 in Thailand (Duangphakdee, unpublished data). Recently, meliponiculture has expanded in many parts of Southeast Asia where there are 45 potential stingless bee species [24]. Currently, the primary purpose of stingless bee beekeeping in Southeast Asia (SE Asia) is for pollination services. They are only now beginning to take root for honey production in Southern Asia (in India) and in SE Asia (Malaysia and the Philippines). Commercial meliponiculture has been intensively developed in Malaysia and the Philippines. In Thailand, as in Vietnam, local people still only use stingless bee honey for "medicinal purposes." Meliponiculture is just at an early state of commercialization. No standard practices have developed for meliponiculture yet. The major difficulty is that of collecting honey from a tree or subterranean nest. The honey harvest technique is still being developed, and it appears still that keeping stingless bees in hives is worth the trouble and difficult to propagate in a large scale [26].

As demand for stingless bee honey is increasing, meliponiculture is getting more interest [25]. The following economic analysis is based on current markets in Malaysia. Two types of stingless bee hives were considered, based on logs (natural) and hives (artificial). Authors examined the investment cost and pricing of a small start-up with 30 colonies. The challenge to new investors was the increasing price of colonies and unpredictable return due to stolen logs, threats from overheating, pests, and parasites. The equivalent annual uniform cost (EAUC) index compares different investments in log and hive system. The study shows that revenue and operational cost are the same in both systems. Because the log type is a 40% cheaper investment, this has 22.7% higher EAUC value than a hive system for the 10 years of life cycle considered. However, both the log and the hive systems offer very good return with a margin exceeding 55%. In addition, the system reached breakeven after 8.35 months and 13.56 months with log and hive system, respectively (**Figure 10**). Meliponiculture is therefore economically viable enough to justify investment in Malaysia [25] and other Southeast Asian countries.

The standard size for stingless bee hives has not yet been determined properly. The number of stingless bee keepers in Thailand has been expanding during the past two decades from 700 in 2014 [27] to 1500 in 2018 [28]. Most meliponikeepers are small-scale farms ranging from 20 to 50 hives. Chanthaburi and Trat provinces

**Figure 10.** *Breakeven comparison of log and hive system [25].*

of eastern Thailand have the most developed commercial meliponiculture for pollination and honey production at approximately 5000 hives [27, 29]. The selling price of Thai stingless bee honey is 1200–1500 THB (\$37–\$47 USD) per kilogram which 10 times and 3 times higher in price of honey from Thai produced *A. mellifera* and wild *Apis* (*A. florea*, *A. dorsata*, and *A. cerana*), respectively. The propolis and wax cerumen are additional active markets in Thailand with per kilogram returns of 1500–2000 THB (\$47–\$62 USD). In total, [29] evaluated that stingless bee hive products added 5.76 million THB (\$177,500 USD) to the regional economy in 2014. Because of the increase in meliponikeeping, a number of new stingless bee beekeepers in Thailand are increased gradually to support in-country and international markets in other SE Asian countries.
