Preston is the city of central Lancashire, set on the Ribble between the coast and the Pennine foothills and home to the county's administrative centre since 1798. The Lancashire BKA covers the city, and the surrounding landscape — the Ribble riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old parkland limes of Miller Park and Moor Park, the mixed farmland and old orchard country of the Ribble Valley fringe to the east, and the Fylde coastal plain to the west — gives local bees a productive mixed season from lowland farmland to Bowland fringe.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Fishergate and Winckley Square conservation areas, along the Ribble riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Avenham Park and Brockholes, in the old parkland and walled garden remnants of Miller Park, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Victorian and Edwardian city-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
PR1 8AP· approx. 1 km
Visit websiteFY6 7ST· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteWA11 8RG· approx. 29 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.
