Cambridge is the university city on the Cam in the heart of East Anglia, with its famous backs — the college gardens running down to the river — and the flat fenland of the Cambridge Fens extending north and east. The Cambridge BKA is one of the most active university-town associations in England, and the surrounding landscape — the Cam riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old college gardens and lime walks, the chalk grassland of the Gog Magog Hills and the rich arable farmland of the south Cambridgeshire plateau — gives local bees a varied and historically rich season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the lime trees and old walled gardens of the King's Parade and Hills Road conservation areas, along the Cam riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Grantchester Meadows and the Backs, on the chalk grassland and scrub margins of the Gog Magog Hills, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older university and Victorian city-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CB22 4PB· approx. 10 km
Visit websiteCB10 1ES· approx. 22 km
Visit websiteSG6 1NX· approx. 35 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
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.
More on beekeeping in CambridgeshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
