Derby is the county city of Derbyshire, set on the Derwent where it leaves the Peak District and broadens into the Trent vale, with Rolls-Royce aero-engine heritage and a medieval cathedral. The Derbyshire BKA covers the city, and the surrounding landscape — the Derwent riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old parkland limes of Markeaton Park and Darley Park, the allotment fringe of the Victorian suburbs and the mixed farmland of the Amber and Dove valley fringe — gives local bees a varied lowland-city season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older lime trees and garden remnants of the Cathedral Quarter and Friargate conservation areas, along the Derwent riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Darley Park and Borrowash, in the old parkland and walled garden remnants of Markeaton Park, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Victorian and Edwardian city-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
DE13 0BN· approx. 14 km
Visit websiteDE55 7LX· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteNG15 9GA· approx. 27 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.
