Wemyss Bay is a small village and CalMac ferry terminal at the southern end of Inverclyde, the departure point for the ferry to Rothesay on Bute. The village's ornate Victorian railway station — one of the finest in Scotland — opened the area to Glasgow day trippers in the 1860s, and the surrounding villas and bungalows retain a holiday and retirement character. The wooded hillside above the village carries mature sycamore and birch; the shoreline vegetation includes sea buckthorn and rosehips along the rocky coast. The Skelmorlie Water and the valleys descending from the Renfrewshire Heights carry hawthorn and alder in relatively sheltered inland corridors.
Collectors attend swarms in the wooded hillside sycamore and birch above the village, in the mature garden trees of the Victorian and Edwardian villa properties along Skelmorlie Road and Underheugh, on the coastal scrub and sea buckthorn along the shore path south to Skelmorlie, and in the eave voids and chimney stacks of the older station-village properties around the railway terminus.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CA6 4HN· approx. 159 km
Visit websiteCA13 0AU· approx. 166 km
CA24 3HZ· approx. 173 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Sycamore is the dominant May flow tree throughout Inverclyde, lining the Victorian and Edwardian streets of Greenock and Port Glasgow and covering the steeper hillsides above the town in semi-natural woodland. White clover on the amenity grasslands, parks and road verges of the coastal towns is the main mid-summer crop from June through August. Hawthorn on the hedgerows of the agricultural land between Kilmacolm and Inverkip provides a strong May blossom flow. The Renfrewshire Heights above Greenock and Inverkip carry extensive heather moorland from mid-July through September — one of the most accessible upland heather grounds from the Glasgow conurbation, and a traditional destination for beekeepers moving colonies in late July. Himalayan balsam is establishing on the Kip Water and Gryfe corridors. Bramble on old quarry and railway embankment sites around Greenock provides a useful late-summer supplement. Gorse and broom on the hillside rough grazing above the coastal towns provides a sustained spring flow from April. Ivy on the older stone buildings and Victorian tenements closes the calendar in October.
More on beekeeping in InverclydeReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
