Bedale is a handsome market town in the Vale of Mowbray at the foot of Wensleydale, its wide, cobbled market place flanked by Georgian townhouses and the tower of St Gregory's church. The town sits at the point where the lowland arable plain meets the pastoral Dales fringe — a position that gives local honey bees a long forage calendar running from oilseed rape and hawthorn in the vale through white clover on the limestone pastures to ling heather on the high Dales moorland above Masham and Coverdale. Bedale Beck threads through the town to join the River Swale, carrying willow, hawthorn and meadowsweet scrub along its length.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the market place limes and churchyard trees, in the older roof voids and chimney stacks of the Georgian properties on North End and South End, along the hawthorn and ash hedges of the Bedale Beck and Crakehall Beck corridors, and in the garden fruit trees and mature ornamental hedges of the residential streets east of the A1.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
DL7 8NR· approx. 11 km
Visit websiteDL10 4TT· approx. 17 km
Visit websiteDL3 6PW· approx. 28 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The Vale opens on oilseed rape, hawthorn and sycamore; the Dales add hedgerow bramble and lime around Ripon, Harrogate and Skipton; but North Yorkshire is defined by its heather. The North York Moors and the eastern Dales give long, reliable ling flows from late July into September — still commercially worked, still producing some of the finest heather honey in the UK. Bilberry on high pasture adds a quiet early-summer supplement, and rosebay willowherb flushes every managed forestry clearing.
More on beekeeping in North YorkshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
