Towcester is a small market town on Watling Street in south Northamptonshire, set on the River Tove between the Nene headwaters and the Cherwell watershed — a town of Roman origin (Lactodorum) with a fine coaching-inn high street and Salcey Forest on the eastern horizon. The Northamptonshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the sweet-chestnut and oak woodland of Salcey Forest, the Tove riverside willows and meadow margins, the old parkland limes of Easton Neston and the hedged grassland of the south Northants ridge — gives local bees a classic English mixed-woodland season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Watling Street and Market Square conservation areas, in the sweet-chestnut and oak rides of Salcey Forest, along the Tove riverside willows and watermeadow margins, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older ironstone coaching-town properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
MK9 3EP· approx. 19 km
Visit websiteNN3 7AX· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteCV21 2JT· approx. 33 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The county opens on a mix of oilseed rape and field beans across the arable belt between Kettering and Daventry. Hawthorn, blackthorn and field maple line the ironstone walls and quickset hedges. The estate woodlands — Rockingham, Salcey, Whittlewood — produce a sweet-chestnut and lime flow in June, particularly in the older planting blocks. Bramble is dense along the Nene Valley; rosebay willowherb flushes the disused quarry and railway land; and ivy in ironstone villages gives a generous late crop.
More on beekeeping in NorthamptonshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
