Apiary Inspections and Foulbrood Disease in England for 2006

Bee Inspectors from the National Bee Unit (NBU), part of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), conducted inspections of honeybee apiaries in England during 2006. The dataset provides counts of inspected apiaries and positive diagnoses for American and European Foulbrood diseases, broken down by county. This data was drawn from the live BeeBase database and is subject to retrospective updates.

Use Cases

• Analyze regional prevalence of American Foulbrood (AFB) based on county-level infection counts.
• Compare the incidence of European Foulbrood (EFB) against AFB based on the provided diagnosis fields.
• Map inspection coverage and disease hotspots across English counties based on the geographic breakdown.
• Assess the potential for data drift in longitudinal studies based on the note about retrospective updates to the live source.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from the official National Bee Unit's live BeeBase database.
• Includes specific counts for two distinct diseases (AFB and EFB) and percentages of infected apiaries.
• Provides geographic granularity with breakdowns at the county level within England.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• County boundaries reflect those stored in BeeBase and may not match current administrative units.
• Data is from a single year (2006), limiting temporal analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Bee Unit (NBU), Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), via Government Digital Service.

Collection Method

Inspections carried out by Bee Inspectors and recorded in the live BeeBase database.

Time Range

2006

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

England, broken down by county.