Bakewell is the only market town within the Peak District National Park, set on the Wye in the limestone White Peak between Chatsworth and Haddon Hall. The Derbyshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the limestone grassland and ancient ash-scrub dales of Lathkill Dale, Bradford Dale and the Wye valley, the park-lime and sweet-chestnut avenues of Chatsworth and Haddon, the old hay meadows of the limestone plateau and the riverside willows of the Wye — gives local bees one of the most botanically rich and varied forage landscapes in England.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older walled garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Place and Bridge Street conservation areas, on the limestone grassland and ash-scrub of Lathkill Dale and Bradford Dale, in the old parkland lime avenues of Chatsworth and Haddon Hall, and in the chimney stacks and limestone eaves of the older market-town and estate-village properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
S41 8NA· approx. 17 km
Visit websiteDE55 7LX· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteS60 5PA· approx. 30 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring opens on blackthorn and hawthorn in the dales, with sycamore and field maple on the valley slopes. Oilseed rape is common in south Derbyshire. The signature flow is high-moorland ling and bell heather across Bleaklow, Kinder Scout, Stanage and Big Moor — thick, amber-cast, and still commercially migrated to. The White Peak adds limestone grassland herbs — wild thyme, knapweed, marjoram — and bilberry grows on the moorland margins. Rosebay willowherb flushes every disused quarry, and ivy closes the year on stone-walled farms.
More on beekeeping in DerbyshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
