Huntly is the principal market town of Strathbogie — a well-proportioned planned town at the junction of the Bogie and Deveron rivers, with the dramatic ruined towers of Huntly Castle dominating the town square. The Deveron and Bogie valleys are good cattle-farming country with deep hedges, hay meadows and alder-lined banks, and the heather moors of the Clashindarroch Forest immediately to the west give Huntly bees access to a late-summer ling flow that many low-ground Aberdeenshire apiaries can only reach by migration. Sycamore and hawthorn carry the main spring flow; lime trees in the Castle grounds and the Gordon Schools parkland provide a June crop; bramble and rosebay willowherb are heavy on the Bogie margins.
Collectors attend swarms in the Huntly Castle grounds and the Gordon Schools parkland trees, along the Deveron and Bogie riverside willows and alder margins, on the heather-moor fringe above Clashindarroch Forest, in the older sandstone properties and market-town chimney stacks around Gordon Street and Gordon Square, and in garden sheds and outbuildings in the Deveron valley.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NE65 9QH· approx. 251 km
Visit websiteNE46 3NB· approx. 279 km
Visit websiteCA6 4HN· approx. 279 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape on the vast arable belt around Inverurie, Turriff and Ellon is the defining early flow — Scotland's single biggest rape region. Hawthorn and sycamore carry the post-rape period; lime lights Aberdeen's granite streets in June. The heather of Royal Deeside, the Ladder Hills and the Cabrach gives one of the finest and most commercially worked heather honey flows in Britain. Bilberry and hill forage add; a short but real ivy flow on the granite villages finishes the year.
More on beekeeping in AberdeenshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
