a touch of possible ambiguity here -
"The committee was told there were 37,000 registered bee keepers in England and Wales - but as there was no compulsory registration, unlike in France and New Zealand - that was only a rough estimate of how many people actually kept bees"
-does that mean that there are 37,000 registered beekeepers, or is that an estimate?
Still means that the BBKA only speaks for a third of beekeepers!
The other point is that if registration is voluntary, and there are people employed to seek out beekeepers to get them to register, what is the procedure when the Range Rover with the blacked out windows screeches to a halt in the drive? Am I going to be allowed to say "eff orf, I do not wish to deal with the representatives of the forces of darkness?", will I be pistol-whipped by the bee stasi?, precisely how "voluntary" is "voluntary?"
(or will it be a case of "I smell gas sarge", and unregistered beekeeper is flattened by battalion of hurtling boneheads.....)
