Market Harborough is a market town on the Welland in south Leicestershire, set among the rolling Lias clay hills of the High Leicestershire countryside and close to the Northamptonshire border. The Leicestershire and Rutland BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the Welland riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old parkland limes of Welland Park, the ridge-and-furrow pasture and ancient hedgerow oaks of the Naseby and Foxton fringe and the mixed arable and grazing farmland of the Harborough hills — gives local bees a classic English mixed-farming season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the St Dionysius and High Street conservation areas, along the Welland riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Foxton and Great Bowden, in the old parkland and orchard remnants of the Welland Park and Dingley fringe, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older market-town and Georgian properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NN3 7AX· approx. 22 km
Visit websiteCV21 2JT· approx. 26 km
Visit websiteCV11 5DN· approx. 38 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.
