Huntingdon is a market town on the Great Ouse in west Cambridgeshire, birthplace of Oliver Cromwell and set beside the wide flood meadows of the Ouse valley. The Cambridge BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the Great Ouse watermeadow willows and osiers, the old parkland of Hinchingbrooke House, the ancient flood-meadow hay grassland of the Ouse Washes fringe and the mixed arable farmland of the Huntingdonshire plateau — gives local bees a productive and varied riverside season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Square and High Street conservation areas, along the Great Ouse riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Hinchingbrooke Country Park and Houghton, in the old parkland and walled garden remnants of Hinchingbrooke House, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older market-town Georgian and Victorian properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
PE7 3BN· approx. 24 km
Visit websiteCB22 4PB· approx. 32 km
Visit websiteSG6 1NX· approx. 39 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.
