Wellingborough is a market town on the Nene in central Northamptonshire, between Northampton and Kettering, with the wide Nene valley floodplain and its willows and water-meadows to the south. The Northamptonshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the Nene riverside willows and watermeadow margins, the old parkland limes of Swanspool Park, the ridge-and-furrow pasture of the Irchester Country Park fringe and the mixed farmland of the Ise and Nene confluence country — gives local bees a productive central-Northamptonshire season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Square and High Street conservation areas, along the Nene riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Irchester Country Park and Ditchford, in the old parkland and orchard remnants of Swanspool Gardens, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Victorian market-town properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NN3 7AX· approx. 10 km
Visit websiteMK9 3EP· approx. 29 km
Visit websiteCV21 2JT· approx. 40 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.
