Six Bells is a colliery village on the eastern side of the Ebbw Fach valley, best known for the Guardian sculpture erected in memory of the 1960 Six Bells Colliery disaster. The village occupies a shelf on the valley side above the river, with the moorland plateau of Mynydd Llangattock rising steeply behind the upper streets. Hawthorn and blackthorn scrub is particularly dense on the valley-slope field boundaries above the housing, and the gorse on the lower moorland edge produces a strong April flow for colonies with apiaries at the plateau margin. Sycamore on the valley-side roadsides and the Ebbw Fach flood plain willows and alder provide the foundation of the May flow; bramble on the extensive reclaimed tip ground northeast of the village sustains forage well into August.
Collectors attend swarms in the hawthorn and gorse scrub on the upper valley-side field boundaries, in the bramble on the colliery tip reclamation ground northeast of the village, along the Ebbw Fach corridor, in the mature gardens of the older terrace rows on the valley shelf, and in the chimney stacks of the early twentieth-century miners' houses.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NP7 9DY· approx. 14 km
Visit websiteCF5 6LW· approx. 29 km
LD3 0TP· approx. 31 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Sycamore is the dominant May flow tree throughout the borough, flowering profusely on the valley sides from Blaina to Brynmawr. Hawthorn on the valley-rim hedgerows and blackthorn in the gorse-edge scrub supplements the April flow. Bramble is exceptionally dense on the extensive reclaimed colliery tip and forestry margins — a prolonged and reliable mid-summer crop — and rosebay willowherb adds colour and forage on every disturbed bank. White clover covers the playing fields and recreation grounds of the valley-floor settlements; the Clydach Gorge ash woods below Brynmawr add a limestone-flora element unusual in the valleys. Ling heather and bilberry on the plateau above 350 metres at Beaufort, Brynmawr and Tredegar give accessible late-summer heather forage rarely available this close to a valley settlement. A strong ivy flow on old stone terraces and chapel walls closes the year in October.
More on beekeeping in Blaenau GwentReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
