Wells is England's smallest city, set at the foot of the Mendip Hills with its medieval cathedral, bishop's palace moat and the limestone grassland of the Mendips rising immediately behind. The cathedral gardens and the bishop's palace grounds provide exceptional urban forage; the Mendip limestone upland carries wild thyme, marjoram and rock-rose through June and July; and the orchard and hedged pasture of the lower Mendip villages add to a long and productive season.
Collectors regularly handle swarms in the lime trees and moat-margin willows of the Cathedral precinct and Bishop's Palace grounds, on the limestone grassland of Dulcote Hill and the Mendip escarpment above the city, in the orchard gardens of the Coxley and Wookey Hole villages, and in the chimney stacks and limestone-walled roof voids of the older city-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
BA4 5PF· approx. 8 km
Visit websiteBS27 3AA· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteBA3 2DP· 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.
