Malton is an historic market town on the River Derwent between the Wolds and the Vale of Pickering — the food capital of North Yorkshire, with a cattle market, a racehorse-training tradition and some of the finest arable farmland in the county surrounding it. The Derwent meadows, the Wolds chalk escarpment and the parkland of Castle Howard a few miles west make for an unusually varied late-spring and early-summer bee season.
Swarms cluster on the old marketplace sycamore and lime, in the walled gardens and stable yards of the Georgian townhouses of Yorkersgate and Castlegate, along the Derwent riverbank willows and alder carr, and in the hedgerow hawthorn of the Wolds lanes above Norton. The Castle Howard estate parkland carries a substantial feral colony population.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
YO17 7HD· approx. 2 km
YO62 7SE· approx. 17 km
Visit websiteYO19 5UF· approx. 24 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The Vale opens on oilseed rape, hawthorn and sycamore; the Dales add hedgerow bramble and lime around Ripon, Harrogate and Skipton; but North Yorkshire is defined by its heather. The North York Moors and the eastern Dales give long, reliable ling flows from late July into September — still commercially worked, still producing some of the finest heather honey in the UK. Bilberry on high pasture adds a quiet early-summer supplement, and rosebay willowherb flushes every managed forestry clearing.
More on beekeeping in North YorkshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
