2659 20160701171708.0 ASTROimport-816 Zorec, J. 2005 On the frequency of field galactic Be stars Since Be stars belong to the high velocity tail of a single B star velocity distribution, the appearance of the Be phenomenon must be independent of the stellar mass. In the present paper we show that the shape of the distribution of the number fraction N(Be)/N(Be+B) against the spectral type can be explained in terms of the Balmer line emission efficiency as a function of the effective temperature. Frémat, Y. SF2A-2005: Semaine de l'Astrophysique Francaise 2005 361 http://esoads.eso.org/abs/2005sf2a.conf..361Z published in NONREF