Second in hives, seventh in concentration

What the map counts, and what it hides

Every five years, Eurostat sends the farm structure survey to every member state. Among dozens of questions about land, crops and animals, the survey asks each holding how many beehives it keeps. The answers yield two figures per country: how many hives exist in total, and how many agricultural holdings keep bees.

Dividing the first figure by the second gives hives per holding — a direct measure of how concentrated a country's apiculture is. A country with many hives split among few holdings has a sector dominated by large, professional operations. A country with just as many hives split among many holdings has a family sector, made of small apiaries scattered across the territory.

The survey only counts hives kept on a registered agricultural holding, not anyone with a few hives in a backyard who doesn't run a farm. That's why seven EU countries — Germany, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and Denmark — don't appear in the data at all: their beekeeping happens almost entirely outside registered holdings, and Eurostat doesn't publish statistically insignificant figures. The comparison below covers only the twenty countries where the survey found enough hives on agricultural holdings to publish a number.

The numbers

One honeycomb, one country per cell

Each hexagon stands for an EU country, sized by how concentrated its apiculture is rather than by territory. The larger and darker the cell, the more hives fall, on average, to a single holding. Hover or tap a cell for the full numbers.

The EU average in 2023 is 60.8 hives per holding — practically the same figure as Romania (64.4) and Italy (60.3). The two countries with the most hives in the EU run an apiculture sector no more concentrated than the European average. The outlier is Greece, with only 9,430 holdings — under a third of Italy's 30,790 — yet the highest concentration in the EU.

Romania is concentrating, but Italy faster

Between 2020 and 2023, the number of Romanian holdings keeping bees fell slightly, from 27,240 to 26,640 — down 2.2%. Over the same period, the number of hives grew 16.6%, from 1.47 million to 1.71 million. The result is a 19.3% rise in hives per holding, faster than the 12.6% rise recorded by the EU average over the same period.

Italy moved even faster. Its hive count nearly doubled, from 1.04 million to 1.86 million, while the number of holdings grew much more slowly, from 22,610 to 30,790. Hives per holding climbed 31.8% — the fastest pace among countries with more than a million hives. Greece, with growth of only 14%, remains the EU's most concentrated apiculture, but not the one concentrating fastest.

Malta posted the largest percentage growth in the EU, +160%, but its scale stays small — 6,110 hives in total, under 1% of Greece's. A huge percentage rise on a small base doesn't move Malta's place in the EU honeycomb; it only marks it as the most volatile cell.