Honiton is a market town in the Otter valley, long famous for its hand-made Honiton lace and for a busy livestock market that has served East Devon farming since the Middle Ages. The town sits in a hollow between the Blackdown Hills AONB to the north and the East Devon Hills to the south, where hedged oilseed rape and cereal fields give way to ancient orchards, meadow pasture and dense hawthorn hedgerows. The Otter water meadows, the Honiton Bottom meadows and the broad verges of the A30 corridor carry a substantial forage run from spring through late summer.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the lime and horse chestnut of the High Street and the older residential roads around Northfield, in the riparian willows and hawthorn scrub along the Otter and its tributaries towards Awliscombe, in the old orchard trees at the town edge, and in the eaves and chimney stacks of the Georgian coaching-inn terraces on the High Street.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
EX13 5RJ· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteEX5 1EJ· approx. 19 km
Visit websiteEX16 7DN· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Few UK counties open as quickly. Gorse and blackthorn flowering on the cob hedges of the South Hams can carry colonies into a strong early build-up, followed by the sycamore and lime flows of the river valleys — the Exe, Teign and Dart in particular. Sweet chestnut dots Haldon and the east Devon coast; Dartmoor's bell and ling heather give a classic, thick, ambercast crop into August. On Exmoor, the north-slope bilberry and late ling heather feed smaller, darker crops still prized by local keepers.
More on beekeeping in DevonReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
