Dunkeld is a small cathedral town on the River Tay, at the Highland Boundary Fault where Perthshire's lowland character gives way to the deep wooded gorges of the upper Tay. The cathedral grounds, managed by the National Trust for Scotland, hold a remarkable collection of mature lime, sweet chestnut and sycamore with some of the finest native trees in Scotland; the Parent Larch — planted in 1738 — is the largest surviving larch in Britain. The Tay willows and the Hermitage woodland above Dunkeld (with its Ossian's Hall and Black Linn waterfall) add a rich dimension of rowan, oak, birch and bilberry. Heather moorland begins in earnest above Dunkeld on the Atholl Estate roads.
Collectors attend swarms in the Dunkeld Cathedral grounds lime and sweet chestnut, in the Hermitage woodland native oak and birch margins above the Braan gorge, along the Tay willows from the bridge downstream to Birnam, in the stone garden walls and eaves of the cathedral town's historic terraces, and on the heather moorland above Dunkeld on the Pitlochry road.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CA6 4HN· approx. 184 km
Visit websiteNE65 9QH· approx. 186 km
Visit websiteNE46 3NB· approx. 200 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.
