Ely is a cathedral city set on an island of high ground rising from the flat fen, with the Norman cathedral — the Ship of the Fens — visible for twenty miles across the flat landscape. The Cambridge BKA covers the city, and the surrounding landscape — the rich dark-peat fen arable land with its oilseed rape and brassica crops, the dyke-side willowherb and loosestrife margins of the fen drains, the Ouse Washes watermeadow and willow habitats and the old walled gardens of the Cathedral Close — gives Ely bees a distinctive fenland and cathedral-city season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older lime trees and walled gardens of the Cathedral Close and High Street conservation areas, along the Great Ouse riverside willows and watermeadow margins at the Ouse Washes and Littleport, on the dyke-side and fen-edge margins of the Engine Drain and New Bedford River, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older cathedral city and Victorian properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CB22 4PB· approx. 33 km
Visit websitePE7 3BN· approx. 37 km
Visit websiteIP29 5LU· approx. 37 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.
