Obviously a bit of hyperbole. The honey bee (dozens(?) of subspecies around the world) is indeed important, you can tell because the largest entomological socie

Obviously a bit of hyperbole. The honey bee (dozens(?) of subspecies around the world) is indeed important, you can tell because the largest entomological society in the world (Entomological Society of America) more or less treats them as their own section in their annual conferences, on par with sections for all insects like "Insect Evolution and Systematics". "Most important living thing" though, that assertion is not terribly meaningful/useful in a biological sense. Bees are certainly one of the most important species for many NSF grant targeting PIs at the moment,"bees"referring to hundreds of different species. These grants often emphasize the importance of "native" species. There is $ in pollination studies, bee genomics, natural history collection digitization etc.