Crewkerne is a handsome hamstone market town in the far south-west of Somerset, close to the Dorset boundary, with the Windwhistle ridge and the wooded combes of the Ham Hill country to the north. The South West Division of the Somerset BKA covers the town and the surrounding mixed farmland of the Axe valley upper reaches. Blackthorn and hawthorn hedge the old enclosure fields around South Perrott, Misterton and Merriott; bramble is abundant in the Ham Hill scrub and the old quarry margins; and white clover on the vale pastures and the sycamore in the wooded combes provide a reliable summer flow.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the mature sycamore and lime trees of the town centre, in the hamstone walled gardens and orchard remnants of the Viney Bridge and Hermitage Street area, along the old hedgebank lanes towards Clapton and Merriott, in the barn eaves and old farmyard stone walls of the Axe valley villages, and in the Ham Hill limestone scrub near Stoke-sub-Hamdon.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
TA13 5HD· approx. 10 km
Visit websiteBA20 1HN· approx. 13 km
Visit websiteDT9 6FF· approx. 17 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
The apple orchards of Taunton Deane, Glastonbury and the Tone Valley give an early, intense flow in May; sycamore and hawthorn run behind. Lime scents the streets of Bath and Wells in June; bramble blankets every hedge. The Levels contribute a long late flow on willowherb, loosestrife and himalayan balsam along the rhynes. Mendip provides limestone grassland herbs — wild thyme, marjoram, knapweed — and the Quantocks give a small but real late heather supplement. Ivy closes the year on old orchards and stone churchyards.
More on beekeeping in SomersetReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
