UK beekeepers are not legally required to register their hives, but registering an apiary with the National Bee Unit's BeeBase database is how government inspectors know an apiary exists at all. When a notifiable disease is confirmed, inspectors draw a statutory movement-restriction zone around it as a circle of the given radius.
- Disease type sets a realistic default radius: AFB/EFB standstill zones are commonly drawn around 3 km, while exotic pests such as Small Hive Beetle trigger wider protection zones, historically up to 10–16 km.
- An apiary is "in zone" when its distance from the outbreak point is ≤ the zone radius (a straightforward circle test on the 2D map).
- Grey (unregistered) apiaries are invisible to BeeBase-based contact tracing even though they remain legally bound by the restriction.
- Estimated inspector visits per day scales with how many registered apiaries fall inside the zone, since BeeBase contact details are what let the National Bee Unit plan its rounds (registered-in-zone ÷ 3.2, rounded, minimum 1).