Ulverston is a small market town in the Furness peninsula, tucked between the southern Lake District fells and the broad tidal sands of Morecambe Bay. Its cobbled market street and canal head give it a distinctly southern-Cumbrian character, and the surrounding landscape — the limestone pavements and grasslands of Birkrigg Common, the fellside oakwoods of the Crake valley, the saltmarsh and reed beds of the Leven and Kent estuaries, and the hedged pasture of the Furness plain — makes the Ulverston area one of the most botanically varied bee territories in Cumbria.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the mature garden trees and old walled orchards of the Market Street and Church Walk conservation area, on the limestone grassland and gorse scrub of Birkrigg Common, along the Crake and Leven riverside alder and hawthorn margins, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older limestone and sandstone cottages of the town and surrounding Furness villages.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
LA5 9SE· approx. 23 km
Visit websiteLA8 8LX· approx. 26 km
Visit websiteFY6 7ST· approx. 40 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring comes late here; blackthorn and hawthorn only really get going in mid-May. Sycamore is important around every fell farm; bramble and white clover carry midsummer. The defining flow is fell heather — bell from late July, ling into September — across the central Lakes, the Howgills and the north Pennines, still widely migrated to for one of the best heather crops in England. Bilberry in the oakwoods adds a small early-summer supplement. Limestone pavement herbs on the Morecambe Bay edge and ivy on whitewashed cottages finish the year.
More on beekeeping in CumbriaReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
