Aldeburgh is a small Suffolk coastal town famous for the Aldeburgh Festival, Benjamin Britten, and its shingle beach backed by the tidal River Alde. The town sits within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB, and the reedbeds, saltmarsh and coastal heath of the surrounding Snape and Alde estuary landscape provide an unusual combination of coastal forage — sea lavender and thrift on the saltmarsh, heather and gorse on the dry heath inland — alongside the garden plants of the town's substantial second-home and permanent-residence stock.
Collectors are called to swarms in the beach-garden shrubbery and mature coastal-windbreak trees of the seafront properties, in the gorse and bracken of the Aldeburgh Town Marshes and Slaughden Quay margins, and in the reed and sallow scrub of the Alde estuary reserve to the south. The compact flint-and-brick cottages of the town centre occasionally harbour bees in wall voids.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
NR34 8JN· approx. 33 km
Visit websiteIP6 8PZ· approx. 37 km
Visit websiteCO4 5PA· approx. 51 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Oilseed rape dominates the early flow across the heavy East Suffolk and High Suffolk clays. Hawthorn and field maple follow on the hedgerows, giving way in June to a dependable lime flow in Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Sudbury. The Sandlings — the coastal heath strip from Ipswich up to Lowestoft — produce bell and ling heather in good seasons, and the oilseed-rape / heather combination is still the backbone of commercial Suffolk beekeeping. Coastal buckthorn and ivy carry colonies into autumn.
More on beekeeping in SuffolkReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
