“A world without bees is unthinkable” – today is World Bee Day.
Today, May 20, 2026 is the 9th World Bee Day with the theme “Bee together for People and the Planet – A partnership that sustains us all”, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on the initiative of Slovenia and supported by the European Union on December 20, 2017. But why do we appreciate and celebrate bees? Bees – including far more species than just the honeybee – provide irreplaceable ecosystem services by pollinating wild- and cultivated plants. As part of the project for the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), corsus is currently analysing and evaluating monetary indicators for pollinator services.
Bees are essential for pollination. The world’s greatest amount of pollination is provided by wild bees, bumblebees, and domesticated honeybees.[i] The monetary value of pollination services is huge: In Germany alone, the economic value of crop plants that depend on pollination is estimated at around €3.9 billion.[ii] This figure does not include the ecological value that bees and other pollinators provide through the pollination of wild plants, thereby contributing to the preservation of biodiversity. The WWF estimates that wild bees contribute €577 million to the global economy—highlighting their vital role in both biodiversity and economic stability.[iii]
In Germany, there are around 600 bee species – one of them is the honey bee (Apis mellifera).
However, the protection of bees is in a precarious state. Two-thirds of the approximately 600 species in this country are considered endangered.[iv] This is primarily due to the increasing destruction of habitats that bees depend on. These include a lack of nesting sites such as deadwood or open natural sandy areas, as well as the necessary food and forage plants in the surrounding area of the nesting sites, and, in some cases, the materials needed to build the brood cells, such as clay. Importantly, the majority of bees don’t build their brood cells by means of wax like honeybees or form social groups, yet they live in solidarity and build their brood cells in deadwood, plant stems, clay walls or dry-stone walls.[v]
Conserving bee habitats is essential for their protection. Crucially, everyone can contribute by providing nesting sites and offering a wide variety of flowering plants, preferably native species. You can find plenty of useful and scientifically sound information on How to be bee friendly.
Further information on World Bee Day and how everyone can help: Bee Together.
[i] https://igwildebiene.ch/bestaeubung/
[ii] Oré Barrios, C., Mäurer, E., Lippert, C., & Dabbert, S. (2017). Eine Ökonomische Analyse des Imkerei-Sektors in Deutschland: An Economic Analysis of the Beekeeping Sector in Germany. [Schlussbericht]. https://orgprints.org/id/eprint/32437/1/32437_15NA073_dabbert_uni_hohenheim_analyse_Imkerei.pdf
[iii] https://www.wwf.de/themen-projekte/bedrohte-tier-und-pflanzenarten/wildbienen-verlierer-des-klimawandels
[iv] https://www.wwf.de/themen-projekte/bedrohte-tier-und-pflanzenarten/wildbienen-stark-gefaehrdet
More information about the project: https://www.corsus.de/news/references/monetaere-biodiversitaetskennzahlen/
