Read the paragraph given below and answer the question.
Bee-keeping is the maintenance of hives of honeybees for the production of honey. Honey is a food of high nutritive value and also finds use in the indigeneous systems of medicine. Honeybee also produces beewax, which finds many uses in industry, such as in the preparation of cosmetics and polishes of various kinds. The increased demand of honey has led to large-scale beekeeping practices: it has become an established income generating industry, whether practiced on a small scale or on a large scale.
Bee-keeping can be practiced in any area where there are sufficient bee pastures. There are several species of honeybees which can be reared. Beehives can be kept in one's courtyard, on the verandah of the house or even on the roof.
Bees help the farmers by:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Pollinating Crops
Option (1) Visiting pesticide free plants — Incorrect. Visiting plants free of pesticides does not by itself help the farmer.
Option (2) Decreasing crop yield — Incorrect. Bees raise, not lower, the yield: NCERT says keeping beehives in crop fields during flowering increases pollination efficiency and improves the yield.
Option (3) Pollinating Crops — Correct. As bees visit flowers for nectar, they carry pollen from flower to flower. This pollination sets more fruits and seeds, which is how bees help the farmer.
Option (4) Collecting nectar — Incorrect. Collecting nectar serves the bees; the farmer gains from the pollination that comes with it.
Note 1: The passage is taken from NCERT. NTA has put lines of the NCERT text together to make it. Most CUET (UG) questions come straight from NCERT, so study the book line by line, including figures and their titles.
Note 2: This question is from Chapter 9, Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production, of the pre-rationalised NCERT book. This chapter is not in the present NCERT book (2026-27). The extract below is from the pre-rationalised edition.
NCERT Extract (Pre-rationalised edition, Chapter 9, Strategies for Enhancement in Food Production):
Bee-keeping – “… (v) Handling and collection of honey and of beeswax. Bees are the pollinators of many of our crop species (see chapter 2) such as sunflower, Brassica, apple and pear. Keeping beehives in crop fields during flowering period increases pollination efficiency and improves the yield– beneficial both from the point of view of crop yield and honey yield.”