Spennymoor is a former colliery and iron-working town in central County Durham, set on the plateau above the Wear between Durham city and Bishop Auckland. The surrounding landscape is a mix of regenerating pit-country grassland and the mixed arable and permanent pasture of the central Durham clay plateau, with the River Wear and its wooded banks offering willows, alder carr and hawthorn within easy flying distance. The colliery-reclamation meadows at Merrington Lane and the rough common grazings towards Kirk Merrington sustain bees well through the summer months.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the garden trees and allotment hedgerows of the older terraced streets around Cheapside and Durham Road, along the Wear riverside willows and scrub margins at Croxdale and Low Butterby, on the wildflower grassland margins of the Kirk Merrington and Merrington Lane colliery restoration sites, and in the eaves and chimney stacks of the older colliery-housing terraces.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
DH1 3SG· approx. 8 km
Visit websiteDL5 4BA· approx. 8 km
Visit websiteDL3 6PW· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring is slow to start. Sycamore and hawthorn carry the early flow; oilseed rape is moderate on the lowland. Lime fills June in Durham, Bishop Auckland and Darlington. The defining late-summer flow is North Pennines heather — Teesdale, Weardale, Edmundbyers — still producing some of the finest ling honey in England. Rosebay willowherb is heavy on ex-colliery land; bilberry on upper moorland adds a supplement. Ivy on cottage walls in the dales closes the year.
More on beekeeping in County DurhamReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
