  In this paper we study the set of digit frequencies that are realised by elements of the set of $\beta$-expansions. The main result of this paper demonstrates that as $\beta$ approaches $1,$ the set of digit frequencies that occur amongst the set of $\beta$-expansions fills out the simplex. As an application of our main result, we obtain upper bounds for the local dimension of certain biased Bernoulli convolutions. 
Exceptional digit frequencies and expansions in non-integer bases