Medway · Swarm collection

Bee swarm in Gillingham? Help is a minute away.

Gillingham is the most populous of the Medway towns, its Victorian and Edwardian residential streets, Gillingham Park and the Medway riverside at Gillingham Marina spreading east from Chatham. The mature lime and horse chestnut canopy of Gillingham Park carries a reliable June flow; hawthorn is thick on the Grange and Wigmore farmland hedgerows south of the town; and the Medway estuary at Gillingham strand gives coastal scrub and meadow habitat on the saltmarsh edge.

Postcodes we cover
ME7ME8
Where swarms appear in Gillingham

Typical swarm locations

Collectors attend swarms in Gillingham Park borders and the lime avenue along the park boundary, on the Victorian terrace eaves of Canterbury Street and Jeffery Street, in the hawthorn and elder scrub at Gillingham Marina and the Medway estuary scrub at Horrid Hill, and in the Grange and Wigmore farmland hedgerows south of the urban edge.

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Beekeeping associations near Gillingham

Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.

Association data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.

Forage in Medway

The Medway valley fruit-growing tradition — the western part of the old Garden of England — gives apiaries south of Rochester access to extensive cherry, apple, pear and plum orchards in the Burham, Halling and Snodland areas, with a concentrated late-April to mid-May blossom flow. Oilseed rape is grown on the Hoo Peninsula plateau and the river-plain fields north of Cliffe, giving a strong April flow visible from the A228. Hawthorn is dense on the North Downs scarp hedgerows above Walderslade, Blue Bell Hill and Cuxton; the chalk downland between the Medway crossing and Bluewater carries dense blackthorn, hawthorn and field scabious. The Hoo Peninsula marshes at Cliffe Pools, Northward Hill and Cliffe Creek carry sea lavender, sea purslane and coastal meadow wildflowers through July and August — a distinctive estuarine forage note. Lime trees line the Victorian residential streets of Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham; bramble and elder are prolific on the old dockyard margins and the Medway riverside scrub. Ivy on the Rochester castle walls and the older city fabric closes the year in October.

More on beekeeping in Medway
Nearby towns

Swarm help in neighbouring towns

Seen a swarm in Gillingham?

Report it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.