Bee swarm collection in City of York

Oilseed rape on the Vale of York arable fields around Dunnington, Poppleton and Skelton opens the season from early April. Hawthorn is dense on the field-boundary hedgerows all around the city fringe. York city centre is defined by its lime flow in June — Museum Gardens, Dean's Park, the Knavesmire lime avenue and the Victorian residential streets of Bishopthorpe Road and Bootham all contribute. Bramble is prolific on the railway embankment and Strensall Common edges; willowherb and himalayan balsam follow on the Ouse riverside. Bell heather on Strensall Common gives a modest but genuine late-July supplement. Ivy on the City Walls, churchyard walls and older suburban gardens closes the year.

York & District Beekeepers' Association (yorkbeekeepers.com) covers the whole unitary area, with a training apiary and an active swarm collection roster. Members are experienced with the city's medieval chimneys and walled-garden sites as well as the Vale of York farm outbuildings, the Strensall army-range boundary hedgerows and the university campus wildflower meadows at Heslington.