Boston is a Hanseatic port town on the Witham in the fen country of east Lincolnshire, with the Stump — the tallest parish-church tower in England — as its landmark and the flat fenland reaching to the Wash on three sides. The Lincolnshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the rich arable fenland with its oilseed rape and field beans, the dyke-side willowherb and loosestrife margins, the river-mouth saltmarsh and reed-bed habitats and the old walled gardens of the South End and Wide Bargate — gives local bees a distinctive flat-fen and coastal season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Place and Wide Bargate conservation areas, along the Witham riverside willows and dyke-side willowherb margins at Fishtoft and Skirbeck, on the saltmarsh and reed-bed margins of the Haven estuary, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Georgian and Victorian town-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
PE21 6NW· approx. 0 km
Visit websiteLN10 6PY· approx. 23 km
Visit websiteNG34 7TW· approx. 26 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape is the defining early Lincolnshire flow, enormous in scale across the Fens and Wolds. Field beans, hawthorn and blackthorn carry the hedgerows. Lime and sweet chestnut line the Georgian streets of Lincoln, Stamford and Boston. Bramble is universal, and rosebay willowherb flushes disused airfields and dismantled rail corridors. The Lincolnshire Wolds, though not high, carry sainfoin and chalk grassland herbs. Coastal buckthorn at Gibraltar Point and ivy in the Wolds villages finish a long year.
More on beekeeping in LincolnshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
