Gloucester is a cathedral city on the Severn, with the Docks, the city park and the Vale farmland radiating outward from the historic core. The Cathedral Close limes and the plane trees of Westgate Street provide a classic June urban flow, and the meadows and osier-beds of the Severn floodplain below the city carry sallow and willowherb through summer. The Cheltenham & Gloucester BKA is well-placed to serve the city and the surrounding vale.
Collectors regularly handle swarms in the lime trees and old stone boundary walls of the Cathedral precinct and College Court, in the garden trees of the Kingsholm and Wotton conservation areas, along the riverside willows and alders of the Severn at Westgate and Alney Island, and in the chimney stacks and Victorian terrace eaves of the inner-city residential streets.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
GL50 1QA· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteGL18 1BD· approx. 14 km
Visit websiteGL68GA· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The Cotswolds give early blackthorn and hawthorn on drystone hedges, with limestone grassland herbs later. The Severn Vale brings oilseed rape, horse chestnut and hawthorn in the valley pastures. The Forest of Dean is the country flavour — sweet-chestnut coppice, holly, bilberry and a late heather patch on the upper heaths. Bramble is universal; lime and sycamore dominate the June streets of Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud. A reliable autumn ivy flow on stone-walled churches carries hives into October.
More on beekeeping in GloucestershireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
