Bee swarm collection in Cambridgeshire

Oilseed rape is the dominant early flow across the Fens; field beans add to the picture in June. Hawthorn, blackthorn and cherry plum fill the farm hedges that still mark every drove road. The lime avenues of Cambridge, Ely and Huntingdon provide a concentrated urban flow, and willow, hemp agrimony and purple loosestrife along the Great Ouse and Cam sustain hives well into July. Late summer brings sainfoin on chalk field margins and a modest heather crop on Thetford Heath gravels on the county edge.

Cambridgeshire BKA and its neighbouring divisions in Huntingdon, Peterborough, Ely and Cambridge itself support one of the busier swarm response networks in East Anglia. Collectors here know how to handle everything from college chimney stacks to isolated Fen-edge farmhouses.