Barnet is London's outermost northern borough, where the urban grain gives way to the green sweep of Barnet and Mill Hill golf courses, Monken Hadley Common and the ancient ridge-top common of East Barnet. The old churchyard limes of St John the Baptist, the veteran oaks of Hadley Wood, and the long hedgerow and scrub corridors of the Pymmes Brook valley give local honey bees a genuinely mixed season — earlier than much of Hertfordshire and richer than the tighter terraces of inner north London.
Barnet collectors regularly attend swarms in the lime and chestnut avenues of Monken Hadley Common and Hadley Wood, in the mature garden trees and rose hedges of the older Barnet High Street and New Barnet residential streets, in the scrubby hawthorn and elder of the Pymmes Brook corridor, and in the roof voids and chimney stacks of the inter-war semi-detached properties of Friern Barnet and Oakleigh Park.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
en5 4bz· approx. 1 km
Visit websiteN14 5BH· approx. 5 km
Visit websiteN6 4JU· approx. 8 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The capital opens early on crocus in the parks, then builds on blackthorn, cherry plum and Japanese cherry through March and April. The defining London flow is lime — avenues of common, small-leaved and silver lime line central streets from Regents Park to Bermondsey, producing the distinctively pale, mineral London honey of June. Bramble and rosebay willowherb fill brownfield sites and railway embankments, and a huge secondary ivy flow carries hives deep into autumn on Victorian cemeteries and garden boundaries.
More on beekeeping in Greater LondonReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
