Introduction

The Beekeeping in Mexico, especially in tropical regions, it is an activity that has been practiced for several centuries and today has acquired great socio-economic importance, as it represents an important source of employment and income in rural areas (^{Magaña et al., 2007}) and foreign exchange for the country (^{SAGARPA, 2010}). However, this activity has had to face serious problems because of the africanization of the colonies (^{Güemes et al., 2002}), the presence of the mite Varroa destructor, erratic rainfall, the onslaught of hurricanes on production infrastructure and flora (^{Villanueva and Colli, 1998}; ^{Güemes et al., 2002}), as well as those arising from the oligopsonic structure of the domestic market and the impact of competition on the international market, among other factors; which affect both productivity levels and profitability (^{CREEBBA, 2005}).

But despite this and that from 1990 honey production presents a general downward trend (^{SIACON, 2013}), Mexico ranks sixth in worldwide for its production volume and level of productivity per hive, while in the Americas it stood at the third place in both areas (^{FAOSTAT, 2014}).

Moreover, the low per capita honey and high volumes of domestic production consumption are, among other things, conditions that give the country its export-oriented (^{Güemes et al., 2003}), whose contribution in this area places it in third in the world (^{FAOSTAT, 2014}). However, the level of competition among exporting countries for better markets, the requirement of importing countries have friendly products and higher quality, obliges the producer both to adopt or modify their traditional hive management forms, as well as acquiring new inputs to feed the colonies or to solve health problems; actions that affect the cost of production and the risk of contamination of honey (^{SAGAR, 2000}).

In this regard, in economic theory it indicates that the use of better quality inputs or increased quantity affect the average output or productivity of the input and the corresponding marginal product, variables that are directly related to the average variable cost, the cost and marginal profitability (^{Gould and Lazear, 2004}). In response to the issues raised, the study is aimed at characterizing the behavior and the importance of honey production in Mexico and, in particular, evaluate the productivity indicators of the main factors and inputs used in the production process of honey and to analyze the influence of these factors and inputs on the returns achieved by beekeepers; which it is intended to help increase the low economic information about regional and national beekeeping. Finally, the working hypothesis places the hand labor factor as the main determinant of productivity per hive and it exerts the greatest influence on the level of profitability.

Materials and methods

The study was based on a deductive approach for qualitative and quantitative data analysis tools were used. Indirect information was obtained from the databases of FAOSTAT and Agricultural Information System Consultation (SIACON) of the SAGARPA, while the field was obtained in the 2007-2008 harvest seasons through a statistical sampling survey in Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Veracruz, Guerrero and Jalisco. The preliminary sample was 1 500 beekeepers and the fundamental variable associated with the sampling was the performance of honey per hive.

The sampling technique was stratified (^{Scheaffer et al., 1987}) and each state was considered as a stratum; is considered estimation error limit 3.5% (1 kg) the average yield per hive (29.1 kg). The number of producers was obtained from the VII Census Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry 2007 (^{INEGI, 2009}) and as a fraction of allocation by state (stratum) their relative importance was considered as a producer of honey. The final sample consisted of 618 producers, which was lower than the preliminary sample. The preliminary sample size due to greater variance expected.

The estimation of statistical parameters was performed with attachment as proposed by ^{Stevenson (2006)}. The productivity and profitability indicators were calculated based on the application of the concepts of economic theory (^{Gould and Lazear, 2004}) and the approach of the company type of agricultural administration budget (^{Kay, 1990}). The monetary values were updated to 2013.

Results

Beekeeping world. Honey production of the 144 countries included in the database of the FAO averaged one million 433 900 tons per year in the period 2000 to 2012, grew at an average annual rate of 2.07% and the activity were exploited 75 million beehives, resulting in an estimated average productivity of 19.12 kilograms of honey per hive (^{FAOSTAT, 2014}). Of all countries cited above, 15 are listed as major producers, contributing 71.7% of the total supply of honey and have 66.2% of the inventory of hives; but despite this importance, the level of productivity in several of these does not match its international position as a producer. By continent, Asia ranked first in volume production, but their productivity was lower (38.9%) to that of America, a region that ranked second in production.

Trend beekeeping in Mexico. Approximately 44 000 livestock producers practice this activity throughout the country and in 2012 had a little over one million 898 thousand hives. Honey production during the period 19902012 showed a general downward trend with marked ups and downs (Figure 1) and the average annual volume was 57.3 thousand tons.

Fuente: SIACON-SAGARPA.

Figure 1 Behavior of honey production in Mexico. 

The ten major producing states of honey in Mexico, are: Yucatán, Campeche, Jalisco, Veracruz, Guerrero, Chiapas, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Oaxaca and Michoacán. Of these states, Yucatán is the one that has had the largest share of domestic supply and their contribution was 16% in 2000-2012.

As for the beekeeping regions of Mexico, is found that the most important is the southeast or the Yucatán Península (1990-2012). In this region are located the states with national relevance as Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo and Chiapas; while in the Pacific are located state of Jalisco and Michoacán are located and in the Gulf region, Veracruz, Puebla and Oaxaca.

Structure and production capacity. The honey is the main product by weight and value obtained from the hives, their destiny is both the sale and the consumption of the family and is obtained from processes which differ by the inputs used and the ways of managing the colony. The second important apiculture product is the wax is obtained by 68.4% of beekeepers. The other products with relatively minor quantity are pollen, propolis and royal jelly.

The beekeepers in the states of Jalisco and Guerrero are, at the national level, the only ones that have greater diversification in its activity, i.e. achieve more than two types of bee products. But of these two entities, in Jalisco it has developed a greater agro industrial integration of beekeeping, this both horizontally and vertically.

The production capacity of the beekeeper is very variable. For example, the average tenure in Jalisco is 335 hives, while in Chiapas is 21, the lowest recorded for the states of productive interest. Veracruz State ranks second in this category, with a holding of 88 hives on average beekeeper. Meanwhile, beekeepers in the states of Campeche and Quintana Roo have less beehives than the state of Yucatan (37.1) average. The productive capacity of the apiary, according to tenure and characteristics of hives, consists on average only 7.7% of brood chambers; 58.2% by brood chamber and an additional bucket with honey or pictures to increase (double); 29.5% with a brood chamber and two hikes and finally brood chamber and three increases (4.6%).

Meanwhile, is found that beekeepers have different number of apiaries in operation, whose national average is three. For example, in states like Campeche (1.4), Quintana Roo (1.5) and Yucatán (2.1), the average tenure is low and generally due to the shortage of available areas for activity. In other states like Chiapas (1.2), where there is a considerable number of producers, tenure is similar to that of the above states. The states of Jalisco (9.8) and Veracruz (4.1) are the places of the republic where the average tenure of apiaries by beekeeper is higher.

Productivity of the main factors and inputs. The estimated value of productivity was on average 29.1 kg of honey per hive per year and represents the result of the combination of several factors, which include technology and physicalnatural environment. In particular, the productivity of the working day was 14.6 kg of the sweet, while per thousand pesos of investment in fixed assets is achieved 119.6 kg, per kilogram of sugar used in the feeding of colonies is obtained a productivity of 6.8 kg of honey (Table 1).

Regarding productivity per working day, was observed that in the state of Jalisco reached the highest average value of this variable, which indicates that the use of human resources is carried out under the principles of technical efficiency. The fact that indicators of this variable in the states of Yucatan, Chiapas and Quintana Roo result the lowest in the sample, is because in these states apiaries are small and widely dispersed that impede the continuous work during the workday. Also, the productivity gap contribute periods in which feeding practices and water supply to the colonies are made.

The apiculture productivity indicator related to economic factor (investment) was, as expected, different in value between the states of the sample. For example, the record lowest it presented the state of Jalisco, of which a little less than 80 kilograms of honey per thousand pesos recorded investment in fixed assets. Meanwhile, Yucatán had the highest productivity in this area, which was mainly due to the low level of total fixed asset investment, especially in infrastructure and equipment, as most beekeepers are small. Also, this productivity indicator evidence in Jalisco would be using fixed assets with some inefficiency; for example, the high investment in infrastructure that serves only a few times a year.

Moreover, the degree of association between the level of productivity per hive and the main socio-demographic variables as age of the producer in beekeeping, age and schooling (Table 2), shows that the first variable exerts a greater influence the degree of schooling. This situation, where farmers with lower level of education, or without it (17.9%), obtained a productivity equal to or greater than the producer with higher education, is that the production process is strongly influenced by environmental factors, second, the technological level of activity (which is generally semi technified), does not require high educational standards for conducting management practices.

Is important to expose as supplementary information in Table 2, the negative relationship established between the level of education and age of the producer in beekeeping, this in order to present more evidence on the relationship between schooling and productivity. Thus, with regard to the latter relationship that people with higher levels of education have better employment options and income when the secondary or tertiary sector of the economy are integrated noted, so they leave beekeeping or, as have evidence, they practiced as a secondary activity, causing an apparent carelessness in carrying out the activities of the apiary and a consequent reduction in productivity.

With respect to the correlation established between productivity and variable number of apiaries in operation (r= 0.013) and total hives (0.008), it is very low and their influence can be considered as an effect of size or scale of the company on the Variable referred; the sign of the respective coefficients show a change in the same direction, which is in line with the principles of the theory of production.

Productivity, production costs and profitability. The percentage breakdown of the costs of honey production in Mexico is mainly composed of the variable cost (67.1%), the main items of this, are the value of wages (31.2%) and the acquisition of food supplies (12.2%). In the case of fixed costs, its main item includes the value of the depreciation of the apiary infrastructure and extraction (20.3%).

The average profitability of beekeeping apiary production obtained positive for all states of interest, but when stratified by segmenting or total ownership of hives (1-20; 21-50; 51-100; 101-250; 251-500 and more than 500), is observed that profitability increases as the number of hives in possession, but at the highest levels of tenure (last layer) initiates a decrease profitability. This phenomenon observed in beekeeping is typical of economies of scale or size, in which the theory evidence that the company growing after a certain limit has various operational and administrative inefficiencies that impact both costs and the income, which explains this behavior.

One aspect of interest in the profitability analysis is the magnitude of the indicators derived from its two components (sales revenue and production costs), which allow us to observe both the effect of productivity factors and inputs on means or unit production costs, as the expected return on investment and the strategy pursued by producers to maintain or increase its value. The yield per hive was 185.7 pesos ($ 14.54 USD) and per thousand pesos of investment ($ 78.31 USD) was 229.1 pesos ($ 17.94 USD). Meanwhile, the indicator that expresses the relationship between the benefits and costs of production (cost/benefit) was 0.37.

Finally, the information contained in Table 3 reveals that the two variables that determine income, price of honey received by the beekeeper and production volume sent to the market, derived variable productivity or average yield per hive, has a direct effect on the corresponding profitability, but slightly less than the effect that the selling price; which favors both the improvement in the current sale or trading relationships with buyers, as the technical aspects for achieving higher levels of utility. Variable cost, payment of freight centers apiary extraction or market, when honey is extracted in situ, they have the greatest negative effect on profitability due to the increase in the value of fuel; while the price of sugar exerts the second negative influence of interest.

Discussion

Based on the available statistical information, is found that almost half (48.3%) of world honey production for the period 2000 to 2012 was contributed by China, the United States, Argentina, Turkey, Ukraine and Mexico, countries with a little less than a third of all hives (27.2%) and of these, the Asian and the two Latin American, contributing 45.4% of all honey marketed in the international market (^{FAOSTAT, 2014}). Meanwhile, more than half of the top 15 honey producing countries have an average productivity of 20 kg or less per hive per year, while almost a third of that group this productivity exceeds 30 kg.

In general, there are various technical, social, economic and environmental factors that influence the process of honey production and productivity (^{Manríque, 1995}; ^{Villegas et al., 2000}; ^{Thomas and Pal, 2002}). For example, when considering the continental areas in the world where such conditions are different, is found that the yield per hive varies significantly; phenomenon observed in turn in regions of America, Mexico and Argentina favor, because of its importance and livestock dynamics, production of honey and apiculture productivity in their respective regions.

At the national level, the trend presented honey production was influenced by both intrinsic and external factors; among these they may be mentioned the africanization of the colonies (^{Uribe et al., 2003}), the presence of the mite Varroa destructor (^{Güemes et al., 2003}), whose main effect was manifested downward trend during the years 1992-1995 (^{Chihu et al., 1992}; ^{Martínez and Medina, 2011}). The lowest production record (1996) is related to the effect of hurricanes Opal and Roxana affecting the state of Campeche in 1995; while decreasing production presented from 2002 to 2005 is related to the effect of Hurricane Isidore, which affected both the inventory of hives of apiaries, as the vegetation of the state of Yucatán; in general the effect of hurricanes that have affected the states of the Pacific and Atlantic (^{SAGARPA, 2010}), as well as deforestation of jungles and forests (^{Nahmad, 2000}) and, in recent years, the effect of climate change have prevented are achieved production levels of the past as of 1986 (^{SIACON, 2013}).

Set forth in the preceding paragraph, coincides with that reported by ^{SAGARPA (2010)} regarding beekeeping in Mexico, where the "decline affecting beekeeping over recent years, he says, was generated by the loss of hives as a result of hurricanes, mainly in the Southeast of the country, and the withdrawal of hives of activity, due to the loss of biological material (bees) by the low availability of nectar plants pollen in regions such as the Costa de Guerrero, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco and Michoacán, as well as in the Yucatán Península by excessive rainfall; adding early frosts in the Mexican highlands that affected part of the harvest of Puebla, Tlaxcala and Hidalgo and drought that occurred in the north of the country".

In conjunction with the above, market factors, such as internal or external prices and competitiveness, have had their effect in this period, but if it is considered that the entry of a significant part of producers does not depend solely on the apiculture, or on average 40.1% of farmers have up to 20 hives (^{Magaña et al., 2007}), changes in microeconomic variables are not observed clearly in the volumes of domestic production.

For its part, the difference between the volumes of honey production by region can be explained by considering the geographical demarcation of the six beekeeping regions, since in these various physical and natural environmental and technological practical conditions exert an influence determinant on the production of the apiaries (^{SAGARPA, 2010}). It is noteworthy that these beekeeping regions make up a map of production and supply, which should integrate a welldeveloped domestic market but by low consumer preference, substituting honey for corn syrup and maple (^{Herrera, 2010}) as well as the low level of household income, domestic demand in the period 2000-2012 represented 56.4% of total production (^{SIACON, 2013}; ^{FAOSTAT, 2014}).

With respect to that income level, determining variable of consumer demand in the report of the National Commission for the Evaluation of Social Development Policies reference to this variable is as follows: first, 21.2 million Mexicans in 2010 (18.8%) suffered from food poverty and second, 51.2% of the total population of Mexico suffered patrimonial poverty (^{CONEVAL, 2013}). These figures lead to assume that in the medium term these markets do not represent the best option to sell honey.

In particular, the different productive conformation that have honey-producing states due to the following: first, abundance of bee flora in the area; second, prevailing climatic factors (humidity, light and temperature); third, frequency and duration of production polliniferous (^{Villegas et al., 2000}); fourth, availability of capital and, fifth, the working capacity of the beekeeper and his family. These five circumstances determine in turn the size of the apiary, which generally contains no more than 35 hives.

The relevant to comment on the productivity achieved by beekeepers in states that are distinguished by their volume of production at the national level, is the fact that a group of four states that have a yield per hive or above the average observed the Americas, the largest in the world scale. On the other hand, the second group of three states have a level of performance, which despite being smaller than the first group than the world average and the European Continent. Also, the coefficient of variation of productivity in the sample (16.5%) shows that the difference in this variable is not as great among the states of interest.

These data are consistent with those reported for Central America ^{Goslino (2010)}, who points out that in this region the national average yield lowest corresponds to the Salvador (9.8 kg/hive) as a result of its higher density of beehives in the small territory this country, while Costa Rica is the most important in this category (35.1 kg/hive).

The estimates social indicators, relative to the level of productivity, education and seniority, agree in part with what was found by ^{Lema and Delgado (2000)}, who when investigating the sources of technical efficiency in beekeeping of a sample of small and medium producers southwest of the province of Buenos Aires determined that education, experience in the activity and the number of hives in operation reduce technical inefficiency; the largest effect was the last variable.

With regard to cost items and profitability of the process of honey production in Brazil, ^{Feitosa et al. (2004)}, found that honey production is very profitable, which coincides with the present study. Meanwhile, the results of ^{CREEBBA (2005)} presents evidence of the crisis of profitability of small and medium producers of Argentina; while ^{Engler et al. (2008)}, observed for Chile that the profit margin in beekeeping is minimal, especially for those traditional production systems. In particular, the indicators obtained in this study corroborate that the national beekeeping is profitable, because for every peso invested in the activity far exceeds the recovery of an equivalent investment in fixed income bank notes or CETES.

Conclusions

Production volume and productivity level achieved by beekeeping in Mexico, places the country in a remarkable place in the global arena and not least in the Americas; this importance has been maintained despite the slight decrease in its domestic supply of honey. The main factors determining inputs and productivity per hive listed in order of importance the level of investment in infrastructure and equipment, appearance associated with the technological level of the management of apiaries; the number of working days and according to the abundance and quality of flowering, the amount of sugar supplied bee colonies. As for social factors related to productivity, were most important experience in the activity and age of the beekeeper, which process characteristics of process, exceeded the level of schooling.

Productivity per hive, the result of technical, social and environmental factors, exerts less influence on the level of profitability obtained by apiary that exerted by the selling price of honey, while the cost items the value of transport and sugar were the most negative influence on the utility. Finally, it was determined that beekeeping is profitable and which is in a process of re-evaluation and strengthening.