Bee keeping has dramatically declined in the UK and in the past one hundred years there has been around a 75% decrease in the number of bee hives. Today there are an estimated 274,000 honey bee hives in the UK; the majority of these hives are kept by approximately 44,000 amateur keepers. Around 200 bee keepers manage bees on a professional basis and collectively they manage around 40,000 colonies.
That estimated figure of total hive numbers is pretty well known to be way too high, and is an old figure that has been left unchanged in govt. figures for many years. The truth could easily be 100,000 less, but if the official figure is modified downwards the UK would get less of the EU pot, and the bodies slashed back as a result would be the NBU and the inspectorate. The EU money not being used as intended in the UK is a totally separate matter. (Its not just these 'blooming foreigners' that are 'at it'.)
At one of the management group meetings in London recently it was suggested that there were more like 175,000, and that 35%, possibly more, were in the hands of larger scale entities, and that those entities accounted for in excess of 80% of the UK traded honey supply. Slightly muddied figures of course, as some of these entities are both BFA members and BKA members, and thus part of both camps and both counts.
UK honey supply is fickle, and is a remarkably small slice of the trade, as the 20% often quoted includes that honey that never reaches open market in any way. By almost all measures we do not have enough bees in the UK, and if we were to hit the TRADED honey target of say 20%, it would mean a big uplift in hive and beekeeper numbers. Trouble is, the bigger the share you shoot for (and govts of all hues like the idea of the help it would give to the balance of payments) the lower in price the slice of the market you have to aim for. Honey sales are slow right now due to last years crop being offered at too high a price, the packers stopping buying it, and it still lying unsold today, with new seasons just round the corner to add to the stockpile. Not sure if it was Rooftops or Hivemaker that predicted a big drop in the bulk price of blossom honey this year, but they definitley know what they are talking about.
UK honey will never fill the UK market. Chris B suggested this as the measure of when we have enough bees here, but sadly a measure of maybe 40% of the market is probably more like it, going deeper in than that necessitates competing with provenances whose price point is way below that at which we can break even. Much of the true cheap end of the market is trading into the UK at under USD 2000 per tonne. (Actual figure 1750, CIF UK port, as per stock offerings only two weeks ago. Duty still to be added.) The idea we could EVER compete with that is a non starter. (And what a waste to think your nice honey could be used on the likes of sugar puffs and baked into oblivion in the cooking process.)
