Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire, set in the Vale of Aylesbury — the flat, fertile farming country between the Chiltern Hills and the Northamptonshire clay uplands. The Aylesbury Vale BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the old parkland limes and walled gardens of Waddesdon Manor and Hartwell House, the mixed arable and grazing farmland of the Vale, the Thame riverside willows and watermeadow margins and the chalk grassland and beechwood of the Chiltern fringe — gives local bees a productive vale and chalk season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Square and Temple Street conservation areas, along the Thame and Berks and Bucks Avon riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Haydon Hill and Broughton, in the old parkland and walled garden remnants of Waddesdon and Hartwell, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Georgian and Victorian town-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
HP22 5TE· approx. 3 km
Visit websiteHP11 1BJ· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteMK9 3EP· approx. 26 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The Chiltern beech hangers produce an unusual honeydew flow some years; lime, field maple and sweet chestnut are the more reliable June flows through Marlow, High Wycombe, Amersham and Chalfont. In the Vale, oilseed rape dominates the spring and field beans support early June. Bramble is dense on the commons; rosebay willowherb fills every beech-clearing on the scarp. A strong late ivy flow runs across the flint-walled villages and ancient churchyards of the scarp foot.
More on beekeeping in BuckinghamshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
