How many bees are there in the world?
There are about 100 million managed honey bee hives worldwide, and a hive holds anywhere from 10,000 bees in winter to 60,000 at the summer peak — so the managed honey bee population is somewhere around 2 trillion, swinging seasonally by a factor of three. That covers one species. There are roughly 20,000 bee species, most of them solitary and none of them counted, so the true bee population is unknown and much larger. The number of managed hives has risen by about 85% since 1961, which sits awkwardly with the popular framing that bees are disappearing.
How the figure is arrived at
Beekeepers register hives and national agriculture ministries report the totals to the FAO, so the hive count is a real census. The bee count is that census multiplied by an assumed colony size — which is why it is quoted as a range and why summer and winter figures differ so much.
How confident it is
- Low estimate
- 1,500,000,000,000
- High estimate
- 4,000,000,000,000
- Spread
- 2.7× between the bounds
Other living things and the natural world counts
- How many people are there in the world? about 8.2 billion
- How many grains of sand are there on Earth? roughly 7.5 quintillion on the world's beaches
- How many ants are there in the world? about 20 quadrillion
- How many trees are there in the world? about 3 trillion
- How many insects are there? about 10 quintillion
- How many species are there? about 8.7 million
- How many people have ever lived? about 117 billion
- How many drops of water are there in the ocean? about 27 septillion
- How many fish are there in the sea? somewhere between 3 trillion and 100 trillion — nobody knows
- How many species are endangered? more than 45,000 assessed as threatened
- How many birds are there in the world? about 50 billion wild birds
- How many bacteria are there on Earth? about 5 nonillion
- How many earthquakes are there each year? about 20,000 located a year — around 55 a day
- How many chickens are there in the world? about 26 billion alive at any moment
Common questions
- How many bees are there in the world?
- roughly 2 trillion managed honey bees
- How is that estimated?
- Beekeepers register hives and national agriculture ministries report the totals to the FAO, so the hive count is a real census. The bee count is that census multiplied by an assumed colony size — which is why it is quoted as a range and why summer and winter figures differ so much.
Related pages
- How many people are there in the world? about 8.2 billion
- How many grains of sand are there on Earth? roughly 7.5 quintillion on the world's beaches
- How many ants are there in the world? about 20 quadrillion
- How many trees are there in the world? about 3 trillion
- How many insects are there? about 10 quintillion
- How many species are there? about 8.7 million
- How many people have ever lived? about 117 billion
- How many drops of water are there in the ocean? about 27 septillion
- How many stars are there in the universe? Space and the universe
- How many countries are there in the world? Things people built
- How many bones are in the human body? The human body
- How many stars are there in the Milky Way? Space and the universe
- How many atoms are there in the universe? Space and the universe
- How many galaxies are there? Space and the universe
Sources
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place