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.
Which of the following is not suitable for practicing bee-keeping?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Barren Land
Option (1) Wild Shrubs — Suitable. Wild shrubs are bee pastures.
Option (2) Fruit Orchards — Suitable. Fruit orchards give flowers for bees.
Option (3) Barren Land — Not suitable. Bee-keeping needs bee pastures of wild shrubs, fruit orchards and cultivated crops, which give the bees nectar and pollen. Barren land has no such plants, so it is not suitable.
Option (4) Cultivated crops — Suitable. Cultivated crops give flowers for bees.
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 – “… Bee-keeping can be practiced in any area where there are sufficient bee pastures of some wild shrubs, fruit orchards and cultivated crops. There are several species of honeybees which can be reared. Of these, the most common species is Apis indica. Beehives can be kept in one’s courtyard, on the verandah of the house or even on the roof. Bee-keeping is not labour-intensive.”