The economic engine for pollinator protection
Honey bees power the economy. Native bees need the habitat.
Saving bees requires more than a slogan. It requires a system.
Adopt The Bees connects people to real honey bee hives, local beekeepers, honey products, conservation projects, scientific information, and measurable local action.
Your participation helps support the managed honey bee economy while helping fund the habitat, native plants, nesting resources, research, and community work that wild bees need.
Your Planet. Your Impact.
These are scientific and agricultural facts from published sources, not Adopt The Bees impact metrics. IPBES Global Assessment · FAO Pollination · USGS
Which bees?
The word “bee” represents more than 20,000 known species around the world.
Honey bees are one managed species. They are essential to agriculture, honey production, and the commercial pollination system. Native and wild bees are a much larger and more diverse group. Many live alone, nest in soil, tree cavities, stems, or natural landscapes, and depend on specific local plants and habitat.
Those two realities are connected, but they are not the same.
The honest solution is not to choose between honey bees and native bees. It is to build an economic system around the managed side that helps finance the conservation work required on the wild side.
Managed honey bees
Honey bees are managed by people and connected to real economic activity:
They can be monitored, cared for, adopted, and connected to revenue.
Native and wild bees
Native bees are part of the broader ecosystem and often depend on:
A managed hive alone is not native-bee conservation. Habitat is.
What happened to the bees?
There is no single global number that accurately describes the condition of every bee species. Different bees live in different places, depend on different plants, and face different threats.
But the evidence is clear: pollinators are under increasing pressure from habitat loss, reduced plant diversity, intensive agriculture, pesticides, disease, parasites, climate change, drought, wildfire, and fragmented data.
When flowering plants disappear, bees lose food and nesting opportunities. The U.S. Geological Survey reports that approximately 30–50% of native bees are highly specialized. If the plant a specialized bee depends on disappears, the bee can disappear with it.
Source: USGS
Pollinators need food across the entire season, not one short bloom period. Lawns, development, land clearing, and simplified agricultural landscapes can remove the diversity of plants bees depend on.
Source: FAO Pollination
Pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer use, and intensive land management can reduce flowers, affect bee behavior, and add stress to already vulnerable populations.
Source: IPBES Global Assessment
Honey bee colonies are also under serious management pressure. According to the latest USDA Honey Bee Colonies report:
These are managed honey bee colony-loss statistics, not native-bee extinction statistics.
Source: USDA Honey Bee Colonies 2026
Some regions and species are well studied. Others are barely documented. The latest European assessment estimated that 10% of European wild bee species were at risk of extinction: at least 172 of 1,928 assessed species. Fourteen percent remained Data Deficient. We cannot protect what we do not know exists.
The numbers that matter
The word "bee" covers a very large and diverse group of species.
FAO Pollination · Reviewed September 2026
Honey bees are not native to North America.
USGS · Reviewed September 2026
IPBES Global Assessment · Reviewed September 2026
FAO Pollination · Reviewed September 2026
IPBES Global Assessment · Reviewed September 2026
At least 172 of 1,928 assessed species; 14% remained Data Deficient.
IUCN European Wild Bee Assessment · Reviewed September 2026
Managed honey bee colony loss, equal to 16% of colonies. Not a native-bee extinction statistic.
USDA Honey Bee Colonies 2026 · Reviewed September 2026
Managed honey bee colony health data.
USDA Honey Bee Colonies 2026 · Reviewed September 2026
These numbers describe the broader scientific and agricultural context. They are not Adopt The Bees impact metrics. Our platform metrics are reported separately, with dates, locations, sources, and verification status.
Sources & Methodology →What we are building
Adopt The Bees makes it possible for ordinary people to participate in the bee economy and understand the bees living around them.
People can explore the bees in their region, find a real hive, support a local beekeeper, learn about native species, volunteer, purchase bee-based products, and follow measurable progress.
Why honey bees are the economic engine
Native bees are essential, but most native bee species do not produce a widely marketable product or generate paid pollination revenue at the same scale as managed honey bees.
“We are not claiming that a honey bee hive automatically protects native bees. We are building a model where the managed honey bee economy helps pay for the habitat and conservation work that native bees require.”
How it works
People adopt or support a hive, purchase honey or bee products, subscribe, volunteer, or sponsor a local project.
Revenue supports responsible hive care, local production, maintenance, pollination, and community participation.
Each campaign shows its status, location region, beekeeper or host information, project description, and available updates.
Program funding can support native plants, habitat, nesting resources, monitoring, research, and education.
We show what was committed, what was deployed, where it went, and what has been verified.
The exact allocation for each adoption, subscription, sponsorship, or product is shown before checkout and in the impact ledger. We do not use “100% goes to…” claims or fixed percentages unless the allocation is actually configured and verified.
How we are different
Adopt The Bees is being built by people with direct experience across commercial beekeeping, pollination, hive monitoring, bee sales, honey sourcing, and honey brokerage.
We are building the missing infrastructure between people, bees, beekeepers, products, data, and conservation.
Built from real operating experience in the bee economy.
How people participate
Support a real community hive and follow its story. Participation does not mean legal ownership of the physical hive.
Find a HiveIf there is no hive near you, start a campaign in your city or community.
Start a HiveHoney, pollen, propolis, beeswax, subscriptions, and other products create recurring economic activity around responsible beekeeping.
Explore ProductsPlant habitat, help at events, document bee sightings, contribute skills, support education, or join citizen science without paying.
VolunteerExplore → Select → Learn → Adopt → Confirm
Explore → Find an Opportunity → RSVP → Participate → Track Your Contribution
The bee globe
Our interactive globe lets you click any country to see documented bee species, representative native species, habitat guidance, pollinator plants, and any hives or projects nearby. Where records are thin we say so instead of inventing numbers.
Impact preview
Impact reporting will appear here as projects are verified.
Our research
The future of bee conservation depends on better public understanding, better local data, and better decisions about habitat.
20,000+ described species with records and sources.
Documented species by country, with coverage notes.
Habitat, nesting, and pesticide guidance by location.
Bloom periods, native status, and growing needs.
Floral sources, identity, and tasting characteristics.
Where each record comes from and when it was reviewed.
Questions
The public statistics on this page come from the sources below. Platform impact metrics are reported separately with dates, locations, and verification status.
Support the hives that power the bee economy. Help build the habitat that keeps native bees alive.
Adopt The Bees is a Save The Bees project (A Save The Bees Project). We are building the infrastructure that connects bee-based economic activity with measurable pollinator protection.