Eardisley is a large black-and-white village in the Arrow valley of western Herefordshire, on the Black and White Village Trail between Kington and Hay-on-Wye. The village has a Norman moated castle mound, a church famous for its Romanesque carved font, and the productive hop-yard and cider-apple country of the Arrow valley on every side. The Herefordshire BKA covers the village, and the surrounding landscape — the hop yards and orchards of the Leen valley towards Almeley, the cider-apple country of the lower Arrow, the hawthorn hedges of the ridge farms above the valley and the bilberry and heather of the Radnor Forest on the near Welsh border — gives local bees a classic Marches season of orchard and moorland fringe forage.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden and orchard remnants of the village centre around the castle mound and the timber-framed properties on the main street, in the hop yards and cider orchards of the Arrow valley lanes towards Almeley and Kington, along the Arrow riverside willows and watermeadow margins, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older black-and-white timber-framed and stone-and-cob properties throughout the village.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
HR29PA· approx. 16 km
Visit websiteHR1 2NG· approx. 25 km
Visit websiteLD3 0TP· approx. 29 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The season opens on tens of thousands of tonnes of orchard blossom — cider apple, culinary apple and traditional perry pear — across the Leominster and Hereford belt. Hawthorn on deep double-hedges follows; hop gardens provide a quieter supplementary forage. Lime and sweet chestnut dot the market towns. The Black Mountain foothills add bilberry, heather and gorse to hives on the county edge, and bramble is dense throughout. A long, strong ivy flow on red-sandstone churches and orchard windbreaks carries the year out.
More on beekeeping in HerefordshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
