Sudbury is a market town on the Stour in the Constable country of south Suffolk, with the painter's home at Gainsborough's House at its heart and the water-meadow landscape of the Stour valley stretching to the Essex border. The Suffolk BKA covers the town, and the surrounding landscape — the Stour watermeadow willows and meadowsweet, the old parkland limes of Kentwell and Long Melford, the ancient hedgerow oak country of the south Suffolk clay plateau and the old orchard and kitchen garden country of the Stour valley fringe — gives local bees a classic south-Suffolk river-valley season.
Collectors regularly attend swarms in the older garden remnants and lime trees of the Market Hill and Stour Street conservation areas, along the Stour riverside willows and watermeadow margins at Brundon and Ballingdon, in the old parkland lime-avenue remnants of Kentwell Hall and Long Melford church, and in the chimney stacks and eaves of the older market-town and timber-framed properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CO4 5PA· approx. 18 km
Visit websiteIP29 5LU· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteCM7 3YL· approx. 22 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.
