Auchterarder is a long single-street market town on the southern edge of Strathearn, best known today as the home of the Gleneagles Hotel and its championship golf courses on the moorland above the town. The farmland of the Earn valley around the town produces oilseed rape from late April; hawthorn hedgerows are thick on the field systems; and sycamore lines the older residential streets. The Gleneagles estate and the Tullibardine Distillery grounds add distinctive forage; the moorland above Gleneagles carries heather from late July. Bramble is prolific on the Earn valley sheltered hedgebanks; lime trees line the town's older streets.
Collectors attend swarms in the hawthorn hedgerows on the Earn valley farm lanes around Orchil, in the sycamore and lime borders of the town's High Street, along the Ruthven Water willows north of the town, in the oilseed rape field margins toward Tullibardine, and in the stone garden walls and eaves of the older residential properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CA6 4HN· approx. 159 km
Visit websiteNE65 9QH· approx. 171 km
Visit websiteNE46 3NB· approx. 180 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The lower Strath Earn and Strath Tay are productive rape and raspberry country in May and early June — and Tayside raspberry honey is a distinctive and widely admired flow. Sycamore is heavy on estate parkland; lime lines Perth and Crieff streets. The defining late-summer flow is ling heather across the Perthshire glens — Glen Shee, Glen Lyon, Rannoch and Atholl — with long-established commercial apiaries migrating in. Bilberry, rowan and hill herbs supplement; ivy on stone villages finishes the year.
More on beekeeping in Perth and KinrossReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
