Leicestershire's beekeeping splits along an old geological line. North-west of Leicester, Charnwood Forest is ancient rock, acid soil, bracken and woodland; everywhere else is the pastoral and arable Midlands. The two produce noticeably different honey.
Charnwood's woods and heathy commons bring sycamore, sweet chestnut, bilberry and bramble, along with scattered heather on the acid ground — a small upland-flavoured crop in a lowland county. Across the rest of the county, mixed farming supplies oilseed rape in spring, field beans in June and hedgerow hawthorn and blackthorn throughout. The National Forest planting programme in the west has added many thousands of young broadleaves over the last thirty years, and as they mature they are steadily improving forage in what was mining and quarrying country. The Soar valley carries willow and balsam, and Leicester itself has substantial parkland lime and a growing number of urban apiaries.
Standard mixed blossom across most of the county — medium amber, floral, sets fine. Charnwood apiaries produce a darker, woodier honey.
Flowering times are typical and can shift by two to three weeks with the weather, season and altitude.
Leicester, Loughborough, Hinckley, Melton Mowbray, Market Harborough, Coalville, Wigston, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
In very small amounts. Charnwood Forest has patches of acid heath carrying ling and bell heather, but nothing on the scale of the Peak or the Pennines. Any Leicestershire honey with a heather character is likely to be a blend rather than a pure heather crop — worth asking the producer what is actually in it.
Steadily improving forage. Millions of broadleaf trees planted across west Leicestershire since the 1990s are now reaching flowering maturity, adding sycamore, lime, willow and cherry to land that was previously quarry and colliery ground. Apiaries in that area have measurably more to work with than they did a generation ago.
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