New Alresford is a handsome chalk-country market town on the headwaters of the River Itchen, famed for its watercress beds and Georgian broad streets. The chalk stream margins, the water-meadow sallows and flag iris of the Itchen valley below the town, the ancient hedgerow hawthorn and field maple of the surrounding downland, and the lime-planted avenues of Broad Street give local honey bees a particularly clean, varied chalk-country season — early hawthorn, a long lime flow in June, white clover on the downland margins and a strong ivy finish on the churchyard walls.
Alresford collectors regularly attend swarms in the mature lime and elm garden trees of Broad Street and West Street, in the watercress-bed edge alder and sallow at the head of the Itchen, in the old orchard and kitchen garden boundaries of the properties on the town's fringe lanes, and in the chimney pots and wall cavities of the older flint and brick cottages around The Dean.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
SO21 1BQ· approx. 5 km
Visit websiteGU32 1JX· approx. 9 km
Visit websiteRG22 4ET· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The season opens on oilseed rape across the downs north of Winchester, followed by hawthorn, sycamore and field maple in the hedgerow-rich chalk country. Early summer brings the famous lime flow through Romsey, Alresford and the avenues of Southampton Common, with bramble and white clover carrying hives through July. Late summer belongs to the New Forest — ling and bell heather on the open commons give a thick, amber-tending-black crop, and rosebay willowherb flushes every disturbed ride. Ivy on old boundary oaks finishes the year.
More on beekeeping in HampshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
