Stokenchurch is a village perched on the Chiltern ridgeline at over 150 metres above sea level, adjacent to the M40 motorway cutting that breaches the scarp and overlooking the Vale of Oxford to the west. The Chiltern plateau here carries an ancient landscape of beech hangers, clay-with-flints woodland, old common land with gorse and hawthorn scrub, and productive mixed farmland — and while the village itself is largely modern, the surrounding nature gives local bees some of the finest high-Chiltern forage in Buckinghamshire: beech pollen from the hangers above the M40 in April, cherry and sycamore in May, bramble through the woodland rides in July, and ivy in the old churchyards and garden walls in autumn. High Wycombe & District BKA covers this part of the hills.
Collectors here attend swarms in the beech and oak woodland margins along the ridge footpaths toward Radnage and Ibstone, in the gorse and hawthorn scrub of the old common land east of the village, in the mature garden trees of the older village properties on Oxford Road and the High Street, in the eaves and roof spaces of the 1960s-1980s housing estates that make up most of the village, and in the roadside hedgerows along the Wycombe Road toward West Wycombe.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
HP11 1BJ· approx. 13 km
Visit websiteRG8 0QY· approx. 16 km
Visit websiteHP22 5TE· approx. 19 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.
