Lincoln is a cathedral city set on a dramatic limestone ridge above the Witham vale, with one of the finest Gothic cathedrals in Europe and the Bail and Bailgate Roman street plan beneath it. The Lincolnshire BKA covers the city, and the surrounding landscape — the limestone grassland of the Lincoln Edge ridge, the watermeadow willows and reed-bed margins of the Witham valley, the old walled gardens of the Cathedral Close and the parkland limes of the Arboretum — gives local bees a varied ridge-and-vale season from early blackthorn to late ivy.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the lime trees and old walled gardens of the Cathedral Close and Bailgate conservation areas, along the Witham riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Brayford Pool and Canwick, on the limestone grassland and scrub of the Lincoln Edge above Skellingthorpe, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older cathedral city and Victorian properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
LN1 2DS· approx. 10 km
LN8 3TR· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteLN10 6PY· approx. 24 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.
