Estibaliz Urresola has repeatedly explained that when he searched Google for information about bees, a phrase caught his attention that ended up being the title of his now famous film 20,000 species of bees. In this work, the director, screenwriter and film producer defends the diversity of identities that humans can have to feel and vindicate themselves before others. In its origin, the phrase converted into a film title is also an example of the limited knowledge that humans have about the diversity of life.
As an example of the simplicity of our knowledge of biodiversity, the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) limits itself to indicating that a bee is a "hymenoptera insect, about fifteen millimeters long, blackish brown in color and reddish hair, which "lives in colonies and produces wax and honey"; without even insinuating that in the world there are many other species other than the honey or common bee (Apis mellifera).
To refer to the study of these pollinating insects, the RAE only leaves room to talk about generic entomology, "part of zoology that deals with insects."
The reality of life is much more complex and varied than we can deduce from the language dictionary. In addition to their number, the scientific community has been studying bees for decades as one of the most interesting and complex clades (groups of species with the same origin) of the immense class that makes up insects. In this case, the adjective is more than justified because the existence of more than 1 million different species of insects is known, and some experts suggest that there could actually be between 4 and 5 million species.
In this immensity of insect species, bees are a minority but their study also deserves its own qualifiers, again in this case not recognized by the RAE. Specifically, in recent years, names referring to the study of bees have spread, such as melitology (from the Greek melitta, bee) and apicology (from the Latin apis, bee); both of relatively frequent use in scientific fields in their English versions melittology and apiology or apidology.
Laurence Packer, professor in the biology department at the University of York (Canada) and self-proclaimed melitologist, has published this year what can be considered the most complete and current book specialized in bees: "Bees of the World. A guide to every family (Princeton University Press. 2023) This encyclopedic volume repeats several times that the scientific community has described more than 20,000 species of bees.
It's not the only one. Other similar specialized books also refer - as does Wiquipedia consulted by Estibaliz Urresola - to the figure of 20,00 species.
Laurence Packer, on his website, goes into more detail and remembers that the domesticated honey bee is the best known of the group but that in reality, with figures from 2017, 20,214 species of bees were specifically known.
The Discover Life database provides more up-to-date data, indicating that 20,759 species of bees have already been described around the world. In Spain, specifically, this catalog indicates the existence of 1,140 species of bees, a considerable number if one takes into account that the presence of 1,961 species of bees is known in Brazil, 1,310 in China and 1,200 in Russia. Far above these records, perhaps also due to the greater number of experts and specialized studies, in the United States the existence of 3,594 species of bees has been described, consequently occupying the first position by diversity in this group of insects, according to the catalog. Discover Life.
The world map of bee species (Global Patterns and Drivers of Bee Distribution) published in the journal Current Biology in November 2020 indicated that Spain has particularly favorable conditions for bees, with 1,122 known species (1,049 on the continent), among which which includes more than 100 endemic species (46 exclusive to the Canary Islands).
Determining an exact number of species of bees (and many other groups of living beings) is really complicated because, in addition to there being no unified and globally recognized catalogue, the list is constantly growing with new varieties discovered and described.
One of the most recent additions to the bee family is Pseudoanthidium jacobii, whose description was presented last November (2023) in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. From what is known so far, this new species of bee lives exclusively on the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and its discovery has been possible thanks to images collected by the citizen science platform iNaturalist.com.
