Market Drayton is a gingerbread-famous market town on the Tern in north Shropshire, surrounded by the flat dairy country and old meres of the North Shropshire Plain. The Shropshire BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the old meres and fen carr woodlands at Hales, Blakemere and Crose Mere, the watermeadow willows of the Tern and its tributaries, the hedged dairy pasture of the Plain and the old canal towpath flora of the Shropshire Union Canal — gives local bees a productive and varied north-Shropshire season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden and orchard remnants of the Cheshire Street and Great Hales Street conservation areas, along the Tern riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Adderley and Cheswardine, on the fen carr and scrub margins of the Hales and Blakemere meres, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older market-town properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
SY133JL· approx. 14 km
Visit websiteCW11 2UR· approx. 29 km
Visit websiteST9 0EL· approx. 30 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Early sycamore and hawthorn open on the Severn Valley; oilseed rape is common on the North Shropshire plain. Lime at Shrewsbury, Ludlow and Oswestry gives a strong June flow. Bramble is dense; the mosses of Whixall, Fenn and Bettisfield contribute a patchy but distinctive late summer flow of bog rosemary and cross-leaved heath. The Long Mynd, Stiperstones and Clee Hills provide bilberry and late ling heather — still migrated to by Shropshire beekeepers in August. Ivy on the old red-brick farms and timber-framed cottages closes the year.
More on beekeeping in ShropshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
