Wells-next-the-Sea is a small but busy harbour town on the north Norfolk coast, its quayside, flint cottages and famous beach hut row facing north across a wide tidal creek and saltmarsh. The saltmarsh lavender and sea aster around the creek, the Holkham Estate's parkland limes and the wide arable hinterland south of the town give local honey bees an unusual coastal-to-farmland season, anchored by the pines of Holkham pinewoods and the rich hedgerow country of the coastal plain.
Local collectors attend swarms in the garden trees and flint-walled boundaries of the Staithe Street and Freeman Street properties, in the mature pines and scrub willow on the edge of Holkham National Nature Reserve, in the older chimney stacks and Victorian roof voids of the residential roads back from the quay, and in the rough hawthorn and sea buckthorn on the saltmarsh edge.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
PE30 5DQ· approx. 38 km
Visit websiteNR8 6ND· approx. 39 km
Visit websiteNR12 0SH· approx. 50 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.
