Reepham is a small market town in central Norfolk notable for sharing its churchyard with the ruins of two other medieval parish churches — St Michael and St Mary stand beside the working St Mary's — a curiosity unique in England. The Norfolk BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the Wensum valley meadows and waterside willows at Lenwade and Reepham Mill, the heathland and silver-birch scrub of the Marriott's Way railway path to Norwich, the mixed arable and pasture farmland of the central Norfolk plateau with its oilseed rape, spring barley and mustard, the ancient oak and ash hedgerow trees on the Cawston and Salle lanes — gives local bees a very characteristic central Norfolk agricultural season, including the distinctive lime avenue flows of the Reepham Hall grounds.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the churchyard lime and sycamore at St Mary's, along the Wensum valley riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Reepham Mill and Lenwade, on the birch and gorse scrub margins of the Marriott's Way railway path, in the hedgerow oaks and bramble of the Cawston and Salle fringe lanes, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older flint-and-brick market-town properties on the Market Place and Station Road.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NR8 6ND· approx. 10 km
Visit websiteNR12 0SH· approx. 30 km
Visit websiteNR34 8JN· approx. 43 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring is carried on oilseed rape — vast sheets of it — across the light Brecks soils and the heavy clays of central Norfolk. Lime and sweet chestnut provide an important June flow in the parkland of the Holkham, Sandringham and Blickling estates. Bramble is ubiquitous; heather on the Brecks sandy heaths adds a distinctive late crop. The Broads themselves bring long flows from purple loosestrife, hemp agrimony and balsam along the staithes, and the coastal sea-buckthorn at Holme and Holkham is a known autumn supplement before the ivy.
More on beekeeping in NorfolkReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
