Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, close to the Warwickshire border and surrounded by the mixed farmland and old parkland country of the Soar and Anker headwaters. The Leicestershire and Rutland BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the old parkland limes and walled gardens of Burbage Common and Hinckley Castle Hill, the Soar headwater watermeadows, the ancient ridge-and-furrow pasture of the Dadlington and Stoke Golding fringe and the old orchard country of the Bosworth and Fenny Drayton lanes — gives local bees a reliable mixed-agricultural season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Place and Castle Street conservation areas, along the Soar headwater and Sketchley Brook riverside willows at Burbage Common, in the old orchard and parkland remnants of Stoke Golding and Higham-on-the-Hill, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older market-town Victorian properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CV11 5DN· approx. 7 km
Visit websiteCV3 4AQ· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteCV21 2JT· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape and field beans drive the arable flow. Sycamore and horse chestnut in the market towns build the mid-May crop; lime dominates June in Leicester, Loughborough and Market Harborough. Charnwood brings sweet chestnut, bracken and patches of bilberry; Bradgate and Belvoir parks add ancient lime and oak. Bramble is universal; rosebay willowherb fills ex-quarry ground around Mountsorrel. Ivy on the red-brick farmhouses and old pub gardens closes the season strongly.
More on beekeeping in LeicestershireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
