Shepton Mallet is a small market town on the River Sheppey at the southern foot of the Mendip Hills, historically known for cider, cheese and its working mills. The Central Somerset BKA serves the town, and the surrounding landscape — the limestone grassland of Cranmore, Beacon Hill and the Shepton fringe with its wild thyme, marjoram and knapweed, the old orchard and pasture of the Fosse Way villages, the watermeadow willows of the Sheppey and Whitelake, and the cider-apple orchards of Doulting and Pilton — gives local bees an excellent mixed Mendip-edge season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Place and Town Street conservation areas, along the Sheppey riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Bowlish and Doulting, in the old orchard and cider-apple remnants of the surrounding farms and Pilton estates, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older limestone and render town-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
BA4 5PF· approx. 0 km
Visit websiteBA3 2DP· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteBA9 8JG· approx. 14 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.
