Aylsham is a handsome flint-and-brick market town in north Norfolk, close to the Bure valley and the Broads National Park. Its weekly market, the Georgian town square and the surrounding countryside of hedged arable fields, river valley grazing and estate woodland at Blickling Hall give local honey bees a productive mid-Norfolk season from hawthorn and oilseed rape in May through bramble and white clover to a late ivy flow on the flint churchyard walls in October.
Collectors are regularly called to swarms in the parkland lime and chestnut of Blickling Estate, in the market place garden trees and the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels, in the older flint and brick chimney stacks in the town centre, and in the hedgerow hawthorn and field maple along the Bure valley lanes towards Buxton and Coltishall.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NR8 6ND· approx. 13 km
Visit websiteNR12 0SH· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteNR34 8JN· approx. 43 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring is carried on oilseed rape — vast sheets of it — across the light Brecks soils and the heavy clays of central Norfolk. Lime and sweet chestnut provide an important June flow in the parkland of the Holkham, Sandringham and Blickling estates. Bramble is ubiquitous; heather on the Brecks sandy heaths adds a distinctive late crop. The Broads themselves bring long flows from purple loosestrife, hemp agrimony and balsam along the staithes, and the coastal sea-buckthorn at Holme and Holkham is a known autumn supplement before the ivy.
More on beekeeping in NorfolkReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
