Ross-on-Wye is a market town perched on a red sandstone cliff above a great meander of the Wye, at the southern end of Herefordshire where the river begins its journey through the Wye Valley AONB into Monmouthshire. The Herefordshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the ancient orchards and hedged pasture of the Archenfield, the limestone and Old Red Sandstone grassland of the Doward hills, the riverside willows and meadowsweet of the Wye, and the old kitchen garden country of the Chase area — gives local bees a classic mixed fruit-and-grassland season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Place and Broad Street conservation areas, along the Wye riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Wilton Bridge and Bridstow, on the limestone grassland and scrub of the Doward hills and Kings Caple lanes, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older market-town properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
GL18 1BD· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteHR1 2NG· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteGL15 6BS· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The season opens on tens of thousands of tonnes of orchard blossom — cider apple, culinary apple and traditional perry pear — across the Leominster and Hereford belt. Hawthorn on deep double-hedges follows; hop gardens provide a quieter supplementary forage. Lime and sweet chestnut dot the market towns. The Black Mountain foothills add bilberry, heather and gorse to hives on the county edge, and bramble is dense throughout. A long, strong ivy flow on red-sandstone churches and orchard windbreaks carries the year out.
More on beekeeping in HerefordshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
