Crowthorne is a residential village on the Berkshire-Surrey border at the edge of the Bramshill heathland, best known as the home of Wellington College and Broadmoor Hospital. The surrounding landscape is a mix of lowland heath, conifer plantation, mixed deciduous woodland and the sandy margins of Caesar's Camp Iron Age hillfort on Easthampstead Plain. Heather, bilberry and gorse on the heath provide an unusual forage palette for south Berkshire; garden lime, cherry and sycamore carry hives through June and July; and the bramble-covered railway and roadside embankments are productive through August.
Swarms in Crowthorne settle on the heather and gorse scrub along the Edgbarrow Woods footpaths, in the mature garden trees of the Wellington College neighbourhood, in chimney stacks and roof voids of the Victorian and Edwardian villas, and in the pine branches fringing the heathland commons to the south towards Sandhurst.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
RG40 1AS· approx. 5 km
Visit websiteGU52 7SN· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteSL4 3AX· approx. 17 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The chalk of the Berkshire Downs around Lambourn provides sainfoin, wild thyme and knapweed; oilseed rape bridges the early flow. Windsor Great Park contributes a textbook June lime and sweet-chestnut crop, while Swinley and Crowthorne heaths give a late bell and ling heather flow on the sandy commons — one of the strongest heathland flows in southern England. Rosebay willowherb fills the MoD and railway land corridors, and ivy on the Thames-side villages closes the year.
More on beekeeping in BerkshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
