Godalming is a small market town on the Wey in the Surrey Hills AONB, surrounded by the wooded greensand hills that give this part of Surrey its distinctive enclosed character. The Wey Navigation below the town and the ancient oak and sweet-chestnut woodland of Hambledon and Hascombe hold a long, layered flow — sallow in spring, hawthorn and sycamore in May, bramble through June and July — and the town's tile-hung cottages and old walled gardens add excellent swarm habitat.
Local collectors are regularly called to swarms in the mature garden trees and old boundary walls of the Church Street and High Street conservation areas, in the woodland edge gardens towards Busbridge and Hambledon, along the sallow and alder margins of the Wey corridor at Catteshall, and in the older roof voids of the Victorian and Edwardian town-centre properties.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
GU5 0LB· approx. 5 km
Visit websiteGU10 2DL· approx. 11 km
Visit websiteGU52 7SN· approx. 19 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring builds fast on blackthorn, hawthorn and horse chestnut along the North Downs scarp, then leans heavily on field maple, sycamore and the urban lime avenues of Guildford, Dorking and Woking. The lowland heaths — Chobham, Frensham, Thursley — give a late bell heather crop in good Augusts that colonies here can count on, supplemented by rosebay willowherb across the MoD training land. Bramble is dense from Box Hill to the Surrey Hills AONB, and the old walled churchyards carry a strong ivy flow into autumn.
More on beekeeping in SurreyReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
