Melbourne is a historic market town in South Derbyshire, best known for Melbourne Hall and its formal baroque gardens — one of the finest in the East Midlands — set within productive parkland on the edge of the National Forest. The orchards, walled gardens and lime avenues of the Hall grounds provide excellent forage from March to October, and the hedged farmland around the town carries hawthorn and blackthorn in spring, white clover and oilseed rape through May and June, bramble in July, and ivy into the autumn. Burton Beekeepers covers this area of South Derbyshire.
Swarms in Melbourne are frequently reported from the limestone walls and church yew at Melbourne Parish Church, from the mature gardens of the older houses along Church Street and Potter Street, from the lime trees flanking the Hall grounds, and from the hedgerow oaks and hawthorns of the lanes towards Kings Newton and Wilson.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
DE13 0BN· approx. 13 km
Visit websiteDE55 7LX· approx. 31 km
Visit websiteCV11 5DN· approx. 33 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.
More on beekeeping in DerbyshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
