How many honey bees are there?

Before 1600, there were no European honey bees beyond their native range (Western Eurasia and Africa). read more

And the number of live honey bee colonies will be fluctuating all the time. Despite the gloomy media reports about declining honey bee numbers, I hope these estimates persuade you that honey bees are not facing the same predicament as the Javan rhino (58-68 left). read more

1 billion hives (at 10,000-50,000 bees/hive this is 10-50 trillion bees) Managed: 100 million hives Based on country-level data from FAO, supplemented for a few countries with Apiservices, in 2011 there were about 80 million managed hives. read more

However, while honey bees contribute substantially to crop pollination, there is debate about the potential spillover to natural landscapes and competition between managed honey bees and some of the 20,000 species of wild pollinators. read more