The link (which does work for me, perhaps try another browser) is to an archive of a 2018 article by Jiwoon Hwang which has a table with numbers of different animals, and states “1 trillion animals exist due to humans, 97% attributable to honey”. As Bentham’s Bulldog and the link itself caveats, this is not true, simply because the table does not include any other farmed insects. There were 1-1.2 trillion insects farmed to be eaten by humans or animals in 2020, plus many more silkworms and cochineals. @Jason Schukraftestimated “that at any given time in 2017 there were between 1.4 and 4.8 trillion adult managed honey bees”, for comparison. Below is the calculation from Jiwoon Hwang:
Estimated average lifespan of honey bees: 4 months (25-35 days summer, 6-8 months winter) (Amdam, Gro Vang, and Stig W. Omholt. “The regulatory anatomy of honeybee lifespan.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 216.2 (2002): 209.)
Calculation: World Honey Production 2014: 1,510,566,000,000 grammes. (1,510,566 tonnes * 1000 * 1000) One teaspoon: 5mL (metric, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaspoon#Metric_teaspoon) One teaspoon of honey: 6.8 gramme (5mL * 1.36 kg/L) Honey per honey bee: 0.56666666666667 gramme (6.8 gramme * (1/12)) Honey lifetimes per year: 2,665,704,705,882 (1,510,566,000,000/0.56666666666667) Honey years per year: 888,568,235,294 (2,665,704,705,882 * (4/12))
Edit: note that the 97% number also doesn’t include shrimp.
Thanks for the reply :) the number you cite for other insects is yearly turnover, not how many are alive at any moment, right? So the number might not be as far off?
But yeah, without looking at any data, other major farmed insects numbers are probably increasing at a faster rate than honeybees.
Ah yes, so I guess the comparison is roughly 1-1.2 trillion other insects yearly (2020), versus 4.2-14.4 trillion honeybees yearly (2017). So, 7-29% as many as the number of honeybees.
(Multiplying 1.4-4.8 trillion honeybees alive at one time by 3 to get the annual number, because of the 4 month average lifespan).
The link (which does work for me, perhaps try another browser) is to an archive of a 2018 article by Jiwoon Hwang which has a table with numbers of different animals, and states “1 trillion animals exist due to humans, 97% attributable to honey”. As Bentham’s Bulldog and the link itself caveats, this is not true, simply because the table does not include any other farmed insects. There were 1-1.2 trillion insects farmed to be eaten by humans or animals in 2020, plus many more silkworms and cochineals. @Jason Schukraft estimated “that at any given time in 2017 there were between 1.4 and 4.8 trillion adult managed honey bees”, for comparison. Below is the calculation from Jiwoon Hwang:
Data for honey bees:
FAOSTAT, Livestock Primary, World, Production Quantity, Honey, natural, 2014 (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QL) : 1,510,566 tonnes
“How much honey does the average worker honey bee make in her lifetime? – 1⁄12 teaspoon.” (https://www.honey.com/newsroom/press-kits/honey-trivia)
Density of Honey: 1.36 kg/l (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Nutritional_and_sugar_profile)
Estimated average lifespan of honey bees: 4 months (25-35 days summer, 6-8 months winter)
(Amdam, Gro Vang, and Stig W. Omholt. “The regulatory anatomy of honeybee lifespan.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 216.2 (2002): 209.)
Calculation:
World Honey Production 2014: 1,510,566,000,000 grammes. (1,510,566 tonnes * 1000 * 1000)
One teaspoon: 5mL (metric, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaspoon#Metric_teaspoon)
One teaspoon of honey: 6.8 gramme (5mL * 1.36 kg/L)
Honey per honey bee: 0.56666666666667 gramme (6.8 gramme * (1/12))
Honey lifetimes per year: 2,665,704,705,882 (1,510,566,000,000/0.56666666666667)
Honey years per year: 888,568,235,294 (2,665,704,705,882 * (4/12))
Edit: note that the 97% number also doesn’t include shrimp.
Thanks for the reply :) the number you cite for other insects is yearly turnover, not how many are alive at any moment, right? So the number might not be as far off?
But yeah, without looking at any data, other major farmed insects numbers are probably increasing at a faster rate than honeybees.
Ah yes, so I guess the comparison is roughly 1-1.2 trillion other insects yearly (2020), versus 4.2-14.4 trillion honeybees yearly (2017). So, 7-29% as many as the number of honeybees.
(Multiplying 1.4-4.8 trillion honeybees alive at one time by 3 to get the annual number, because of the 4 month average lifespan).