Paddock Wood is a small market town in the Low Weald of Kent, at the centre of one of the most productive hop- and fruit-growing areas in the county. The surrounding Weald clay carries dense apple, pear and cherry orchards, veteran hop gardens, and hedged cereal fields — with sweet chestnut coppice on the sandier soils to the north offering a full mid-summer flow after the fruit blossom finishes in May.
Collectors are regularly called to swarms in the old orchard trees and hop-yard boundary hedges on the lanes around East Peckham and Mereworth, in the chimney stacks and roof voids of the Victorian Station Road properties, in the garden fruit trees and bramble-covered boundaries of the residential roads, and in the veteran oaks and sweet chestnut on the Wealden commons nearby.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
ME18 6EX· approx. 4 km
Visit websiteTN10 4LL· approx. 7 km
Visit websiteTN17 1JB· approx. 8 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Few places open as explosively as Kent. Cherry, apple, pear and plum in the orchards of Faversham, Tenterden and the Medway bring an intense early flow, followed closely by oilseed rape on the North Downs dip slopes. Lime and sweet chestnut carry hives through June, particularly in the coppiced woods of the Weald. Late summer is often dominated by fireweed on the chalk pits and disturbed ground, with a strong and valuable ivy flow across the coastal plain from Deal to Whitstable. Hops, though decorative for bees, add to the mosaic.
More on beekeeping in KentReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
