Kidsgrove is a canal-side town in north Staffordshire, at the northern end of the Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal, where the industrial Potteries give way to the farming country of the Cheshire border. The North Staffordshire BKA covers the area, and the landscape around it — the hawthorn and elder hedges of the Trent and Mersey Canal towpath, the rough grassland and bramble scrub of the Kidsgrove Brook valley, the farmland hedgerows and meadows of Rode Heath and Barthomley to the north, and the sycamore and lime of the older town streets — gives local bees a productive mixed canal-and-farmland season at the county's northern edge.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older brick terrace eaves and garden walls of Liverpool Road and Market Street, along the Trent and Mersey Canal towpath hawthorn and elder hedges at Hardings Wood and Red Bull, in the Kidsgrove Brook valley rough grassland and bramble scrub at Station Road, and in the older garden sycamore and orchard trees of the Clough Hall and Cedar Avenue residential streets.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CW11 2UR· approx. 7 km
Visit websiteST9 0EL· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteCW8 2DN· approx. 28 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape leads the early flow across the arable belt. Cannock Chase contributes a significant late heather crop — bell first, then ling — on its extensive sandy commons. The Staffordshire Moorlands add bilberry and small ling patches; lime in Stafford, Lichfield, Burton and Stoke-on-Trent fills the June streets. Bramble and rosebay willowherb are everywhere in the former colliery and brickworks land. Ivy carries hives into autumn on old red-brick terraces and the greenbelt villages.
More on beekeeping in StaffordshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
