Hove is the quieter, more suburban half of Brighton & Hove, with wide Edwardian avenues, large garden squares and Hove Park providing reliable urban forage and swarm habitat. The long lime-lined boulevards of New Church Road and The Drive are a particular feature of the early summer flow, and the parks here hold mature flowering limes, sycamores and horse chestnuts that keep bees working from March to September.
Collectors are regularly called to swarms in the garden trees and hedges of the Poets Corner, Goldsmid and Dike Road areas, in the lime-lined avenues of the Old Hove conservation zone, in Hove Park itself, and in the older chimney stacks and mansard roofs of the seafront and first-avenue properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
BN7 2LR· approx. 14 km
Visit websiteBN12 5JL· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteRH19 4SJ· approx. 29 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The early flow starts on blackthorn and wild cherry, before hawthorn lights the hedges of the Weald. Late May to July carries the colonies on sweet chestnut around Heathfield, bramble across every common and hedge bank, and — most characteristically — heather on Ashdown Forest from late July into August, giving the dark, jelly-like Ash Down heather honey some members still cut-comb for show. Ivy closes the year on sheltered sandstone lanes and the tall old churchyards of Rye, Lewes and Battle.
More on beekeeping in East SussexReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
