Blandford Forum is a handsome Georgian market town on the Stour, rebuilt after a great fire in 1731 and largely intact as one of the best Georgian town centres in England. The chalk downland of Cranborne Chase rises immediately to the north and east, with its ancient earthworks, juniper scrub and chalk grassland carrying an excellent late-spring flora. The North Dorset BKA covers the town and the surrounding chalk countryside.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the lime trees and old flint-and-brick walls of the Market Place and East Street conservation area, on the chalk scrub and juniper margins of the Cranborne Chase towards Tarrant Keyneston and Tarrant Crawford, along the Stour watermeadow willows and alders below Blandford Bridge, and in the chimney stacks and Georgian rooflines of the rebuilt town centre.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
DT11 0SF· approx. 7 km
Visit websiteBH18 8AH· approx. 16 km
Visit websiteBH22 8SS· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The chalk downs around Blandford and Shaftesbury bring hawthorn, field maple and a modest oilseed rape flow. The Dorset heath country — Studland, Arne, the Purbeck basin — gives an unusually long heather season (bell heather from late June, then ling) combined with the gorse bloom on the sandy soils. Lime lines the market towns; bramble is dense on the old commons. The late coastal ivy flow on Portland and the cliffs of Lulworth carries hives into autumn.
More on beekeeping in DorsetReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
