Lytham St Annes is a refined Edwardian seaside town at the southern end of the Fylde coast, set between the Ribble Estuary salt marshes and the championship links of Royal Lytham. The town's spacious Victorian and Edwardian gardens carry exceptionally good forage — mature lime and horse chestnut avenues, wisteria-covered garden walls and the rose and lavender beds of the seafront parks — while the dune slacks and gorse scrub at Lytham St Annes Nature Reserve provide late-season pollen and nectar in an otherwise flat coastal landscape.
Collectors attend swarms in the lime and horse chestnut of the Lowther Gardens and Kings Gardens, on the eaves and soffits of the older seaside villas along the seafront roads, and in the gorse and scrub margins of the St Annes dune system. The Ribble Estuary reserve to the south occasionally sends calls when swarms track along the sea wall hedgerows.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
FY6 7ST· approx. 12 km
Visit websitePR1 8AP· approx. 19 km
Visit websiteL37 7BS· approx. 19 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.
