Humberston is a coastal village south of Cleethorpes, running from a Victorian and inter-war residential core inland to the caravan parks and holiday chalets that line the Humber bank at Humberston Fitties. The Fitties — a rare survival of pre-war plotland holiday settlement — consists of hundreds of small timber chalets on a coastal meadow and saltmarsh fringe immediately on the Humber foreshore, creating an unusual mosaic of rough grass, bramble scrub and coastal wildflowers that bees work steadily from May to September.
Collectors here are called most often to the bramble and elder scrub around the Fitties holiday chalets, to the roofspace and timber structures of the older chalets themselves, and to the mature hedgerow trees along the village lanes. The caravan parks south of the Fitties attract swarms that travel from Cleethorpes gardens. Sea buckthorn scrub on the Humber bank gives bees excellent late-summer foraging but can also conceal swarms from late May.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
LN11 0GN· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteLN8 3TR· approx. 29 km
Visit websiteDN20 0JR· approx. 37 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The flat arable belt running south from Grimsby towards Waltham and Holton le Clay carries some of the densest oilseed rape cultivation in England, giving apiary colonies a concentrated April flow that can build enormous early-season colony strength. Hawthorn is prolific in the hedgerow network along the Wolds escarpment and on the lanes towards Laceby, Waltham and Brigsley, with a reliable May blossom. Bramble is generous on the railway embankments, the scrub margins of the docks and the green lanes south of Cleethorpes. White clover fills the pastoral meadows and road verges through July. The Humber estuary saltmarshes fringing Immingham and Healing carry sea lavender and sea purslane through August — a distinctive estuarine nectar source rarely available inland. Sycamore and lime line the Victorian residential streets of Grimsby and Cleethorpes, while ivy on the older brick terraces, dock walls and churchyards closes the forage year in October.
More on beekeeping in North East LincolnshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
