Apiculture, in conjunction with agriculture, offers great scope for income generation through beekeeping. Pollinators provide pollination services that are crucial for enhancing crop productivity and sustaining ecosystem services. Honeybees are the important pollinators of various fruits, vegetables, oilseeds, pulses and fibre crops. In order to achieve sufficient pollination to improve productivity of crops, beekeeping industry needs encouragement. In addition to providing valuable products like honey, beeswax, nectar, pollen, propolis, royal jelly and other products, beekeeping helps to provide additional source of income and employment generation to rural masses. As per estimates only 10% of the existing potential for beekeeping has been utilized in the country and there is much untapped potential. India has a potential of over 200 million bee colonies as against 3.4 million colonies at present which can provide employment to over 6 million rural families. Organised honey collection using modern techniques can provide additional 120,000 tons of honey and 10,000 tons of beeswax from the forests. This can provide employment to 5 million tribal families. Increasing honeybee colonies shall not only increase production of bee products but aso will ensure sustainability of food production through enhanced agricultural and horticultural crop production. Beekeeping industry and its expansion faces several challenges which need to be addressed to make this industry more profitable.

养蜂业与农业相结合，通过养蜂提供了巨大的创收空间。传粉媒介提供的授粉服务对于提高作物生产力和维持生态系统服务至关重要。蜜蜂是各种水果、蔬菜、油籽、豆类和纤维作物的重要传粉媒介。为了实现充分的授粉以提高农作物的生产力，养蜂业需要鼓励。养蜂业除了提供蜂蜜、蜂蜡、花蜜、花粉、蜂胶、蜂王浆等有价值的产品外，还有助于为农村群众提供额外的收入来源和就业机会。据估计，该国目前仅利用了 10% 的养蜂潜力，还有大量尚未开发的潜力。印度有潜力拥有超过 2 亿个蜂群，而目前只有 340 万个蜂群，可以为超过 600 万个农村家庭提供就业机会。利用现代技术有组织地采蜜，可额外从森林中提供12万吨蜂蜜和1万吨蜂蜡。这可为500万个部落家庭提供就业机会。增加蜂群不仅可以增加蜂产品的产量，还可以通过提高农业和园艺作物的产量来确保粮食生产的可持续性。养蜂业及其扩张面临着一些挑战，需要解决这些挑战才能使该行业更加有利可图。