Learn Finnish: Metsässä taitaa asua miljoona mehiläistä. - I guess a million bees live in the forest.

In Finnish, when the subject is a number (other than one) followed by a partitive noun, like miljoona mehiläistä, the verb must be in the third-person singular. Even though there are many bees, the grammatical subject is treated as a single block.

Why does the sentence start with metsässä (in the forest) instead of the bees?

This is an existential sentence (a "there is/there are" sentence). In Finnish, these typically start with the location (metsässä), followed by the verb, and end with the new information or subject being introduced (miljoona mehiläistä).

How does the verb taitaa work here?

Taitaa is a verb used to express an assumption, often translated as "I guess", "probably", or "might". It acts as an auxiliary verb and requires the following verb to be in its basic infinitive form, which is why we use asua (to live) right after it.

Why is the word for bees (mehiläistä) in the singular partitive form?

In Finnish, all numbers greater than one require the noun they are counting to be in the partitive singular. So, the number miljoona forces the base word mehiläinen (bee) into its partitive singular form, mehiläistä.