Longwell Green is a residential suburb in the south of South Gloucestershire, between Kingswood and the Avon valley at Bitton, its retail park and housing estates occupying land that was farmland within living memory. The River Boyd, a tributary of the Avon, flows through the area and its corridor carries willow, alder, bramble and meadowsweet in summer. The Avon Walkway and the Boyd Valley footpath give access to older farmed landscapes where hawthorn hedgerows and sycamore-lined lanes are still productive for bees.
Collectors attend swarms in the garden borders and eaves of the residential streets off Shellards Road and Courtney Road, along the River Boyd corridor and its bramble-rich banks, in the elder and hawthorn scrub at the edges of the retail park green spaces, at the allotment site near Cadbury Heath Road, and in the hedgerow remnants on the agricultural fringe towards Bitton and Willsbridge.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
bs313ep· approx. 5 km
Visit websiteBS1 4QS· approx. 8 km
Visit websiteBA2 9JA· approx. 9 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape on the Severn Vale farmland between Thornbury, Oldbury-on-Severn and the M5 corridor gives a strong April to May flow; the flat fields around Olveston and Aust carry it particularly heavily. Hawthorn and blackthorn are dense on the Cotswold edge hedgerows above Wickwar, Rangeworthy and Iron Acton, and the Frome valley farmland east of Yate carries a reliable hawthorn flow in late April. Lime trees line the older streets of Kingswood, Staple Hill and Mangotsfield and carry a June town-centre flow. The Filton Airfield and BAE Systems perimeter scrub carries extensive bramble and rosebay willowherb, and the Frampton Cotterell and Coalpit Heath old colliery reclamation ground is dense with bramble through July and August. Sycamore is abundant along field margins and roadside hedgerows throughout the Cotswold edge; white clover on the improved grasslands of the Severn Vale closes the main flow from June to August. Ivy on the Cotswold limestone walls and the older suburban garden walls closes the year in October.
More on beekeeping in South GloucestershireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
