**1. Introduction**

Beekeeping has been in practice from an ancient time in Nepal. It is one of the potential sectors to generate the employment and increase the income for the people in Nepal. Beekeeping is landless and marginalized based farming provides the economic, nutritional, and ecological benefits.

Beekeeping in the Nepal carried the tremendous potentiality due to the distribution of high diversified bee flora [1–3] and suitable climatic condition for honeybee diversity [4]. Although Apiculture contributes a very small fraction (less than 1%) to Agricultural Gross Domestic Product (AGDP), beekeeping has been considered as a high value income-generating agriculture activity in Agricultural perspective plan (APP), and it has also been mentioned in the tenth plan. The topographical, climatic, and floral varieties spell heaven for beekeeping in Nepal [5]. Five of the world's seven species of honeybee *Apis laboriosa* S., *Apis dorsata* F., *Apis florae* F., and *Apis cerana* F., and one exotic honeybee *Apis mellifera* L. are found from the plain to the high Himalayan in Nepal. The traditional log hives as well as modern beehives were in practices to keep the bees. Especially, the rural farmers from the

Himalayan regions kept the *A. cerena* in the traditional wooden log hives whereas the urban farmers from the lowland Terai kept both the *A. cerena* and *A. mellifera* on the modern beehives. The farmers in Nepal kept the bees to meet the demand of honey in the local, national, and international markets and also for the pollination in some crops like Oilseed crops, Buckwheat, and fruit crops to increase the yield. The bee species plays crucial role in the conservation of biodiversity by pollinating wild flowers in the entire region, and the species for ecotourism development and income generation in the poor, rural, and landless people in Nepal [6]. It helps to enhance agricultural productivity and conserves biological diversity and ecosystem through ensured pollination services [7]. Despite the huge benefits of beekeeping both in the term of economic and ecological aspects, the quantity and quality of honey production over a period of time was satisfactory may be due to the insufficient management of practices and lack of the training [8]. Beekeeping is very important to increase the productivity of the crops and increase the income of the farmers in the Nepal. In this context, the objectives of the study were to figure out the beekeeping situation by exploring the data on the number of hives, honey production and export situation through the electronic sources and the authorized government organizations.
