Newcastle-under-Lyme is a market town in north Staffordshire, directly adjacent to Stoke-on-Trent but with a distinctly separate character — market square, Georgian terraces, and a green fringe of farmland and country parks edging the Lyme Brook valley. The North Staffordshire BKA serves the town, and the surrounding landscape — the watermeadow willows of the Lyme Brook and Mill Pool, the mixed farmland hedgerows of the Keele and Whitmore countryside, the Apedale and Brampton heathland parks with their bramble and willowherb, and the parkland limes of Keele University — gives local bees a good mixed season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the lime trees and older properties of the Ironmarket and High Street conservation areas, along the Lyme Brook and Brampton riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Brampton Park and Wolstanton Marsh, in the green corridor of Apedale Country Park with its bramble-thick former colliery land, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older Victorian and Edwardian town-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
ST9 0EL· approx. 9 km
Visit websiteCW11 2UR· approx. 15 km
Visit websiteST17 0UP· approx. 28 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape leads the early flow across the arable belt. Cannock Chase contributes a significant late heather crop — bell first, then ling — on its extensive sandy commons. The Staffordshire Moorlands add bilberry and small ling patches; lime in Stafford, Lichfield, Burton and Stoke-on-Trent fills the June streets. Bramble and rosebay willowherb are everywhere in the former colliery and brickworks land. Ivy carries hives into autumn on old red-brick terraces and the greenbelt villages.
More on beekeeping in StaffordshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
