Lymington is a Georgian harbour town on the Solent coast at the southern tip of the New Forest, its cobbled High Street and Saturday market giving way to tidal salt marsh, mudflat and the open common lawns of the Forest beyond the town fringe. The salt-marsh sea lavender, the coastal hawthorn scrub, the walled town gardens and the ancient Forest commoner pasture with its lime-tree avenues combine to give local honey bees an unusual coastal-edge season — both early and long, thanks to the maritime microclimate of the sheltered estuary.
Lymington collectors attend swarms in the walled cottage gardens and Georgian terrace rooflines of the High Street and the Quay, in the hawthorn and sea buckthorn scrub of the coastal path towards Keyhaven and Hurst Spit, in the tidal creek margins and saltmarsh edge at Lower Woodside, and in the Forest-edge common boundaries and older property chimneys between Lymington and Sway.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
SO41 5QG· approx. 3 km
Visit websiteSO43 7NY· approx. 13 km
Visit websiteSO158NY· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The season opens on oilseed rape across the downs north of Winchester, followed by hawthorn, sycamore and field maple in the hedgerow-rich chalk country. Early summer brings the famous lime flow through Romsey, Alresford and the avenues of Southampton Common, with bramble and white clover carrying hives through July. Late summer belongs to the New Forest — ling and bell heather on the open commons give a thick, amber-tending-black crop, and rosebay willowherb flushes every disturbed ride. Ivy on old boundary oaks finishes the year.
More on beekeeping in HampshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
