Peterborough is a cathedral city on the Nene in north Cambridgeshire, with a magnificent Norman cathedral and the flat fenland and gravel-pit habitats of the Nene valley extending in every direction. The Cambridgeshire BKA covers the city, and the surrounding landscape — the Nene riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old parkland limes of Ferry Meadows Country Park, the Nene washes flood-meadow grassland and the mixed arable fenland of the Soke — gives local bees a varied fen and river-valley season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Cathedral Close and Long Causeway conservation areas, along the Nene riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Ferry Meadows and Orton, on the Nene Washes flood-meadow and dyke-side margins towards Whittlesey, 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.
PE7 3BN· approx. 3 km
Visit websitePE9 4HZ· approx. 20 km
Visit websitePE30 5DQ· approx. 47 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.
