Faringdon is a small market town on the limestone ridge of the Vale of White Horse, looking north across the upper Thames plain and south to the Berkshire Downs. The surrounding arable Vale carries oilseed rape and white clover for the main season, the ancient limestone grassland of Badbury Hill and the Corallian ridge provides wild thyme, knapweed and field scabious in late summer, and the Thames and Cole meadows below Coleshill add willowherb and meadowsweet through July and August.
Collectors around Faringdon regularly attend swarms in the garden hedgerows and orchard rows of the town and Bampton Plain villages, in the limestone scrub margins of Badbury Hill and the Corallian grassland, in the chimney stacks of the older limestone cottages of the Clanfield and Alvescot corridor, and in farm buildings on the Thames Valley floor towards Radcot Bridge.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
SN25 4TG· approx. 16 km
Visit websiteOX14 1QY· approx. 21 km
Visit websiteGL7 5PU· approx. 22 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring opens on blackthorn, hawthorn and cherry plum along the stone hedges of the Cotswolds fringe and the chalk lynchets of the Vale. Oilseed rape is locally significant in Cherwell and South Oxfordshire. Beech in the Chilterns contributes to a huge honeydew-flavoured June flow some years, while lime avenues fill central Oxford and the larger market towns. Bramble, rosebay willowherb and field bean carry July; ivy along the Thames valley walls and the old college gardens closes the year.
More on beekeeping in OxfordshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
