1 minute read

Bee Colony Loss in the US

About Makeover Monday

MakeoverMonday is a social data project: “Each week we post a link to a chart, and its data, and then you rework the chart. Maybe you retell the story more effectively, or find a new story in the data. We’re curious to see the different approaches you all take. Whether it’s a simple bar chart or an elaborate infographic, we encourage everyone of all skills to partake. Together we can have broader conversations about and with data.”

Starting from Jan 08, 2018, I decided to put aside one hour on Monday weekly to create some visualization and find some insights from the data.

The datasets are published each week at: MakeoverMonday Datasets.

Makeover Monday 0430

This week’s topic is Bee Colony Loss in the United States. And the original dashboard could be found here. This is a straightforward and clear dashboard.

My Visualization

In the dataset, besides the total annual loss of bee colony, we also have data of beekeepers, colonies, etc. Therefore, I created a parameter to select among those metrics.
Also, as I have worked on several classical map vizzes, this time, I created a hex map following this tutorial.


Please notice that all the visualizations are designed for desktop view, so it is recommended to view them on a desktop device.

Insights

  • Overtime, we cannot see an obvious geographical pattern of which part of US is lossing more bee colonies - this is an issue occuring all around the US without an obvious geographical tendency;
  • But for the number of beekeepers, the states PA, VA, CA and NC are always among the top states over years;
  • For number of colonies, the states CA, ND and TX are always among the top states over years, but it worth to notice that, these states are not the ones with highest state exclusive colonies, potentially indicating we have many colonies maily stay in these states but migrate all around.

Follow this link to find more weekly vizzes :)