Banwell is a historic village at the foot of Banwell Hill on the Mendip edge, its tenth-century abbey tower and the wooded limestone quarries of Banwell Caves Hill giving it a distinctive character among the North Somerset Mendip-fringe villages. Hawthorn is thick on the Banwell Hill and Sandford Road lanes; limestone wildflower scrub on Banwell Hill carries bird's-foot trefoil and wild thyme; and the flat moor fields south of the village carry oilseed rape in spring and clover through summer.
Collectors attend swarms on the old stone garden walls and abbey precinct margins around West Street and Church Street, in the orchard and paddock gardens of the older village lanes toward Christon and Knightcott, in the hawthorn scrub and limestone grassland of Banwell Hill above the village, and in the bramble margins of the old railway trackbed on the Strawberry Line south of Banwell.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
BS24 7AY· approx. 5 km
Visit websiteBS40 5DU· approx. 7 km
Visit websiteBS27 3AA· approx. 8 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape is grown extensively on the North Somerset Levels plain between Weston, Yatton and Congresbury, producing a strong April to May flow that fills supers quickly and requires timely extraction. Hawthorn is dense on the Mendip foothills hedgerows around Churchill, Winscombe and Banwell, and the Tickenham Ridge and Kewstoke Hill carry blackthorn and gorse for the earliest spring forage. Lime trees line the Victorian esplanade gardens of Weston-super-Mare and the older residential streets of Clevedon and Portishead, giving a reliable June town-centre flow. The orchard gardens of Long Ashton, Backwell and Nailsea carry traditional apple, pear and plum blossom in May. Bramble is prolific on the Mendip scarp scrub and on the regenerating scrub of old rhyne banks; white clover on the improved moor grassland and rhyne margins carries through July. Sea-buckthorn and coastal grassland at Sand Bay, Weston Sands and Clevedon Marine Lake provide a late-summer coastal supplement. Ivy on old limestone walls and the cliff-face gardens at Clevedon and Portishead closes the forage year in October.
More on beekeeping in North SomersetReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
