St Neots is Cambridgeshire's largest town, straddling the Great Ouse at the county's western edge — an ancient market town that has grown steadily around its broad Market Square and the long meadows of Riverside Park. The Ouse valley here offers some of the best lowland bee foraging in the county: the riverside willows and osier beds from Eaton Socon to Offord, the oilseed rape and field beans of the surrounding clay farmland, and the mature lime avenues of the town parks all sustain colonies from March through September.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the riverside trees and rough grass of Riverside Park and Barford Road recreation ground, in the mature garden elms and limes of the Market Square and New Street conservation area, along the Ouse watermeadow margins towards Eynesbury and Eaton Socon, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Georgian and Victorian town-centre terraces.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
SG6 1NX· approx. 28 km
Visit websiteCB22 4PB· approx. 30 km
Visit websitePE7 3BN· 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.
