Bude is a coastal town on the north Cornish border with Devon, where the Bude Canal reaches the Atlantic clifftop. Its position on the exposed Atlantic-facing coast gives it a distinct flora: cliff-top gorse and sea thrift, the sheltered valley floors of the Neet and Strat rivers carrying willow, alder and meadowsweet, and the farmland inland thick with white clover and bramble through summer. Bude Beekeepers covers this corner of Cornwall and collectors are experienced with both the open cliff-country swarms and the chimney-pot calls in the Victorian and Edwardian townhouses of the town centre.
Swarms in Bude settle on the gorse and blackthorn of the cliff-top footpath above Summerleaze Beach, in the willow and alder of the canal towpath fringe, in the chimney stacks and roof voids of the older terraced properties behind the main street, and on the elder and hawthorn in the sheltered gardens of the residential streets inland towards Stratton.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
EX23 9JD· approx. 7 km
Visit websiteEX22 7AA· approx. 21 km
Visit websitePL15 8AB· approx. 25 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The season opens with gorse on every headland, flowering intermittently most of the year but peaking in April. Blackthorn on the cob hedges lights up the byways; sycamore and hawthorn carry the early build; and the slow-growing pittosporum and myrtle in the sub-tropical gardens of the south coast provide unusual supplementary forage. Bramble is dominant through July, bell heather appears on Bodmin Moor and the Penwith commons in August, and the mild autumn leans on ivy and fuchsia hedging well into October.
More on beekeeping in CornwallReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
