Nunthorpe is a village on the southern edge of Middlesbrough, where the suburbs give way to the Cleveland Hills escarpment and the great heather moorland beyond. The village has a railway station on the Esk Valley Line, a historic church and a character that is more rural than its metropolitan postal address might suggest. The Cleveland Hills begin immediately to the south, with ling and bell heather on the high ground above Great Ayton and Guisborough reachable within minutes of a hive placed on the village fringe. Hawthorn hedgerows, sycamore and mature garden oaks define the local forage.
Collectors attend swarms on the garden walls and eaves of the older residential properties along Guisborough Road and Carlton Lane, in the churchyard sycamores and flowering hedge at St Mary the Virgin, along the hawthorn and elder hedgerows on the lanes south towards Great Ayton, in the railway embankment scrub near Nunthorpe station, and in the mature garden trees of the larger detached properties on the village fringe.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
TS8 0TG· approx. 4 km
Visit websiteDL3 6PW· approx. 25 km
Visit websiteDL5 4BA· approx. 27 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape on the flat arable plain between the Tees and the Cleveland escarpment produces a heavy April to May flow, particularly around Stokesley, Stillington and the fields east of Yarm. Hawthorn and blackthorn are thick in the suburban hedgerows of Stockton, Billingham and Guisborough. Lime trees line the Victorian residential streets of Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Redcar and carry a reliable June flow. The defining feature of the landscape is the extent of ex-industrial grassland: former ICI works at Billingham and Wilton, steelworks sites at Redcar, and colliery reclamation ground throughout are dense with bramble, rosebay willowherb and white clover from June through August. Sea buckthorn and coastal meadow wildflowers on the North Tees marshes, Coatham Sands and Huntcliff provide a distinctive supplement near the shore. The Cleveland Hills rise sharply south of Guisborough, Skelton and Loftus and carry ling heather and bilberry from late July into September — within easy reach of apiaries on the urban fringe.
More on beekeeping in Tees ValleyReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
