Independence Day this year coincided with the US’s National Honey Bee Day. A honey bee is a small insect that can sit on a fingertip. Why is it accorded such importance in the US? According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the quiet role of bees as pollinators is responsible for almost one-third of global crop output. It enhances yields for 87 of 115 leading food crops.

Bees do more than improve yields. They enhance the nutritional quality of farm produce. If India has to make its agriculture productive and nutritious, bees must be treated as farmers’ best friends. While passing by the mustard fields of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan or the apple orchards of Himachal Pradesh, one realises what these insects can do. They have helped India emerge as the second-largest producer of honey in the world, after China, and the third-largest exporter of honey after China and New Zealand in value terms.

Beyond the pollination service, bees have helped farmers augment their incomes through apiculture (honey bee farming). India’s honey production has nearly doubled over the last decade, from about 76,000 tonnes in 2013-14 to roughly 1,51,000 tonnes in 2025-26, signalling real scale in supply and capacity. Interestingly, almost 70 per cent of India’s honey production is exported ($208 million in 2025-26), and India accounts for........

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