Melton Mowbray is the pork-pie and Stilton-cheese town of east Leicestershire, set on the Eye in the rolling High Leicestershire pasture country that has been a hunting landscape for centuries. The Leicestershire and Rutland BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the Eye riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old parkland limes and walled gardens of Stapleford Park and Melton Country Park, the ancient ridge-and-furrow pasture of the Wolds and the mixed grassland of the Vale of Belvoir fringe — gives local bees a classic Leicestershire pastoral season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older lime trees and garden remnants of the Nottingham Street and Burton Street conservation areas, along the Eye and Wreake riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Egerton Park and Asfordby, in the old parkland remnants of Stapleford Park and the Wolds lanes, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older market-town properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NG318JS· approx. 24 km
Visit websitePE9 4HZ· approx. 29 km
Visit websiteNG15 9GA· approx. 40 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.
