The Vale of Evesham is orchard and market-garden country, and it gives Worcestershire beekeepers something most counties cannot offer: a genuine fruit-blossom honey taken in spring, weeks before the main season starts.
Plum, apple, pear and cherry blossom across the Vale from late March into May is the county's signature, and growers still rely on managed colonies for pollination — an arrangement that suits both sides. Asparagus, soft fruit and market gardening fill the same ground through summer. West of the Severn the country changes: the Malvern Hills and the Teme valley bring hawthorn, sycamore, wild cherry and woodland forage, with hop yards still worked around Bromyard and the Teme. The Severn and Avon valleys carry willow early and Himalayan balsam late. Worcester and Malvern themselves add parkland lime and garden forage.
Delicate and pale where fruit blossom dominates the spring crop; a fuller mixed-blossom honey by late summer.
Flowering times are typical and can shift by two to three weeks with the weather, season and altitude.
Worcester, Malvern, Evesham, Kidderminster, Redditch, Droitwich, Pershore, Bromsgrove
Sometimes, and only in spring. Beekeepers who take a super off after the orchard blossom finishes in May can bottle it separately — it is pale and delicate. Most years it is blended into the main crop instead, so ask producers around Evesham and Pershore directly in early summer.
Yes. Colonies are moved into the Vale's orchards for the spring blossom, which is why several producers here run more hives than a hobbyist would. It also means their bees are working a genuinely local, identifiable crop rather than general farmland forage.
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