Wickwar is a small market town in the northern part of South Gloucestershire, close to the border with Gloucestershire proper, its handsome High Street of Cotswold stone houses, the medieval church of the Holy Trinity and the distinctive Town Hall giving it a genuine historic character. The surrounding countryside — hawthorn and elder-lined Cotswold edge farmland, traditional orchards in the valley bottoms, and the tributary streams of the Little Avon — is some of the most productive forage landscape in the area. Oilseed rape is grown on the plateau fields east towards Charfield, and sycamore is abundant on the roadside hedgerows.
Collectors attend swarms on the stone garden walls and eaves of the High Street properties, in the churchyard limes and yews of Holy Trinity church, in the orchard and kitchen gardens of the older houses on Wortley Road, in the hawthorn and elder hedgerows of the farmland lanes towards Inglestone Common, and in the elder scrub along the Little Avon tributaries south of the town.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
BS32 4PG· approx. 12 km
Visit websiteGL15 6BS· approx. 20 km
Visit websitebs313ep· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape on the Severn Vale farmland between Thornbury, Oldbury-on-Severn and the M5 corridor gives a strong April to May flow; the flat fields around Olveston and Aust carry it particularly heavily. Hawthorn and blackthorn are dense on the Cotswold edge hedgerows above Wickwar, Rangeworthy and Iron Acton, and the Frome valley farmland east of Yate carries a reliable hawthorn flow in late April. Lime trees line the older streets of Kingswood, Staple Hill and Mangotsfield and carry a June town-centre flow. The Filton Airfield and BAE Systems perimeter scrub carries extensive bramble and rosebay willowherb, and the Frampton Cotterell and Coalpit Heath old colliery reclamation ground is dense with bramble through July and August. Sycamore is abundant along field margins and roadside hedgerows throughout the Cotswold edge; white clover on the improved grasslands of the Severn Vale closes the main flow from June to August. Ivy on the Cotswold limestone walls and the older suburban garden walls closes the year in October.
More on beekeeping in South GloucestershireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
