Stow-on-the-Wold is the highest market town in the Cotswolds at around 244 metres, its wide market square ringed by honey-coloured limestone buildings that have served the sheep and cattle trade since the medieval period. The North Cotswold BKA, based near Stow, is the primary association for the town and the surrounding plateau farmland. Sainfoin still grows in some of the old limestone pastures around Donnington and Broadwell; white clover covers the permanent grassland; field maple and hawthorn hedge the wold fields; and the sheltered coombes dropping towards Bourton-on-the-Water carry lime and sycamore.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the dry-stone walls and old sheep pens of the market square conservation area, in the churchyard yews and garden conifers of Stow and the surrounding villages of Broadwell and Donnington, in the limestone boundary walls and orchard remnants of the hill farms, and in the mature roadside trees lining the main routes across the wold plateau.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
GL56 0UN· approx. 5 km
OX15 5HZ· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteGL50 1QA· approx. 25 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.
