Long Eaton is a lace-industry town in the Erewash valley on the Derbyshire–Nottinghamshire border, sitting between the River Trent to the south and the Erewash Canal corridor to the east. The Derbyshire BKA covers the town, and its position at the confluence of river, canal and old watermeadow gives local bees an unusually rich lowland season — crack willow and alder along the Trent Navigation, hawthorn and blackthorn on the Erewash Canal towpath hedges, white clover on the flood-plain pastures at Sawley and Trent Lock, and a long ivy flow on the Victorian brick terraces that built the town's lace fortune.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the Victorian terrace eaves and garden sycamores of Market Place and College Street, along the Trent and Erewash Canal towpath hawthorn and elderberry hedges, in the crack-willow carr and rough watermeadow at Sawley Marina and Trent Lock, and on the scrub and bramble margins of the former Stanton Ironworks ground.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NG15 9GA· approx. 22 km
Visit websiteDE13 0BN· approx. 25 km
Visit websiteDE55 7LX· approx. 25 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring opens on blackthorn and hawthorn in the dales, with sycamore and field maple on the valley slopes. Oilseed rape is common in south Derbyshire. The signature flow is high-moorland ling and bell heather across Bleaklow, Kinder Scout, Stanage and Big Moor — thick, amber-cast, and still commercially migrated to. The White Peak adds limestone grassland herbs — wild thyme, knapweed, marjoram — and bilberry grows on the moorland margins. Rosebay willowherb flushes every disused quarry, and ivy closes the year on stone-walled farms.
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