Bebington is a township on the central Wirral peninsula in the borough of Wirral, and it contains one of the most remarkable planned settlements in England: Port Sunlight, the garden village built by Lever Brothers from 1888 for their soap-factory workers. Port Sunlight's formal gardens, boulevard lime avenues, ornamental shrubberies and the Lady Lever Art Gallery grounds provide an exceptionally well-planted foraging landscape; the higher ground of Storeton village above the town preserves ancient pasture and hedgerow oaks that give colonies a more traditional seasonal flow than the surrounding suburbia.
Collectors attend swarms in the boulevard lime avenues and ornamental gardens of Port Sunlight village, in the hawthorn and elder on the Storeton plateau and the Raby Mere and Dibbinsdale Local Nature Reserve margins, in the mature garden trees of the older Bebington and Higher Bebington residential streets, and on the eaves of the Edwardian and Arts and Crafts properties around the village conservation areas.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CH62 7HW· approx. 4 km
Visit websiteL25 7TE· approx. 9 km
Visit websiteCH7 6BQ· approx. 19 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The Sefton Coast sand dunes contribute an unusual assortment of forage — sea holly, restharrow, viper's bugloss, wild thyme — feeding urban bees along the coast. Horse chestnut and sycamore in Sefton Park, Calderstones and Birkenhead Park give the early flow; the lime avenues of south Liverpool and Wallasey carry the main June flow. Bramble blankets the Mersey Forest plantings; rosebay willowherb flushes Everton and Kirkby brownfield. A late coastal sea-buckthorn crop at Formby and Crosby is a known supplementary flow before the ivy closes the year.
More on beekeeping in MerseysideReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
