2026-10-06 · known bee species
Managed honey bee colonies are not most wild bees
Agriculture relies on a few managed species — wild pollinators do the rest.
Food crops often get pinned on the honey bee, but only about 5% of the world's roughly 20,000 known bee species are managed. The other 95% are wild bees — unmanaged, uncredited, and doing pollination that agriculture quietly depends on.
1 cell = 20 known bee species (0.1% of global bee species) · 1,000 cells
Context
The grid divides the world's roughly 20,000 known bee species into wild and managed shares — about 95% wild, about 5% managed, with the managed side centered on honey bees.
Managed pollination is deliberately concentrated: agriculture leans on a few managed species, honey bees above all, while the wild 95% pollinate with no human management. Hence the title's point — honey bee colonies are not a stand-in for wild bee diversity.
Species counts come from the IPBES pollinator assessment, rounded, as compiled for this 2026 edition. Because they cover only described species, the 95/5 split is an order-of-magnitude picture — species not yet formally described would only enlarge the wild share.
IPBES pollinator assessment species counts, rounded.
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Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-10-06-bee-decline
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