North Walsham is a small market town in north-east Norfolk, its flint-knapped market cross, church tower and mix of Georgian and Victorian buildings set among the gentle arable farmland between the Broads and the coast. The surrounding countryside of hedged fields, farm woodlands and river valley pastures along the River Ant give local honey bees a productive agricultural season from oilseed rape and hawthorn in spring through bramble and white clover to an ivy flow in October.
Collectors are regularly called to swarms in the market place lime trees and the churchyard of St Nicholas, in the older flint and brick chimney stacks in the town centre, in the garden fruit trees of the residential roads around Grammar School Road, and in the hedgerow hawthorn and blackthorn along the lanes towards Stalham and the Broads edge.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NR12 0SH· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteNR8 6ND· approx. 20 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.
