Macclesfield is a former silk-weaving town at the edge of the Peak District in east Cheshire, set where the Cheshire Plain meets the gritstone moorland fringe. The Cheshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the heather and bilberry moorland of the East Cheshire Moors above Tegg's Nose and Macclesfield Forest, the Bollin riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old parkland of Adlington and Hare Hill and the mixed farmland of the Cheshire fringe — gives local bees access to both productive lowland and upland heather forage.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Place and Mill Street conservation areas, on the heather and bilberry moorland margins of Tegg's Nose and Macclesfield Forest, along the Bollin riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Hocker Lane and Gurnett, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older silk-weaving-town Victorian properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
SK7 1PS· approx. 10 km
Visit websiteCW11 2UR· approx. 17 km
Visit websiteST9 0EL· approx. 26 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape is heavy on the lighter soils of Mid Cheshire; hawthorn, sycamore and willow line the field margins. The mosses — Delamere, Holcroft, Risley — contribute a patchy but useful late crop with bog-myrtle and cross-leaved heath. Lime lights the streets of Chester, Nantwich, Crewe and Knutsford. Bramble is dense along every canal corridor, and a small hill heather supplement comes from the Peckforton and Bickerton ridge. Cheshire's pastoral landscape means white clover is still an honest flow, and ivy closes the year on half-timbered village walls.
More on beekeeping in CheshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
