I’ve been playing around with Visme and made this infographic, based on hive count data from the National Bee Unit. This data is based on voluntary data supplied by UK beekeepers, so is likely to be an underestimate – but it’s hard to know how much of an underestimate! To give you an idea though, the British Beekeeping Association (BBKA) say they look after “28,000” hobby beekeepers, whereas in 2022 the National Bee Unit had 11,000 beekeepers complete the hive count. There are of course also feral colonies in places like old tree trunks and chimney cavities, but not many people are counting those.
I came up against WordPress wanting people to buy an upgrade before they can use JavaScript plugins, so I’ve just screenshotted the infographic and added it as an image! You can see the full version at: bee infographic.
Adventuresinbeeland's Blog 
Hi, just showing the tops of the columns makes the changes appear bigger than they are, but the trend is slightly upwards.
Although some people are not on bee base I reckon a lot of people who stopped beekeeping left their bee base data unchanged. Impossible to know how close it is to real hive numbers. I suppose 288k is a tiny number compared to the uk population (people).
Best wishes
Steve D
LikeLike
Hi Steve, I agree with you. Rather than numbers increasing could just be better awareness of using Beebase. Perhaps taking BBKA member numbers and multiplying those by the average number of hives per person (2-3?) would get closer to the real figure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Emily – this info graphic is great and thanks for showing this.
Do you mind if I put it in the EDBKA newsletter (that you conceived and I now carry on)? Lynne Casey
LikeLike
Hi Lynne, yes please do 🙂 I’m not sure if I did conceive the newsletter?! I remember doing some for a year or two but thought it had existed before me. However I could be wrong, was a long time ago now!
LikeLike