Swaffham is a Georgian market town in west Norfolk, with an elegant market place lined with period buildings and a landmark Butter Cross. The town sits at the centre of the Breckland heathland belt — Swaffham Heath, Stanford Training Area grasslands and the sandy field-margins of the surrounding arable farms provide a mix of heathland forage (heather and gorse on the open heath) and agricultural forage (oilseed rape and borage) that is rare this far west in Norfolk.
Collectors attend swarms in the mature lime and horse chestnut of the Market Place and Church Street, in the old privet and hawthorn hedges of the residential streets around the town centre, and in the gorse and bracken of the Swaffham Heath margins to the south where feral colonies periodically establish in rabbit-warren scrub.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
PE30 5DQ· approx. 23 km
Visit websiteNR8 6ND· approx. 35 km
Visit websiteIP29 5LU· approx. 47 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.
