Burnley is a former textile town on the Calder in east Lancashire, at the foot of the Pennine moors between Pendle Hill and the Forest of Bowland. The East Lancashire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the heather and bilberry moorland of Pendle Hill and the South Pennines, the Calder and Brun riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old mill-dam and lodge waterside habitats and the mixed farmland of the Ribble valley fringe — gives local bees access to genuine upland heather forage in late summer.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Manchester Road and Yorkshire Street conservation areas, on the heather and bilberry moorland margins of Pendle Hill above Barrowford, along the Calder riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Towneley Park, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Victorian mill-town properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
BB113RQ· approx. 2 km
Visit websiteHX7 5EA· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteBD20 8PE· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring opens on sycamore and hawthorn in the Ribble Valley hedges; oilseed rape is present but secondary. Lime fills June in Preston, Lancaster, Blackburn and Burnley. The Forest of Bowland and the Pennine fringe produce bell and ling heather from late July to early September — a classic Lancashire heather flow, thick and commercially migrated to. Bramble is dense; rosebay willowherb flushes Blackburn and Burnley former-mill brownfield. Ivy on stone-built villages and coastal bungalows closes the year.
More on beekeeping in LancashireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
