Bee swarm in Arrochar? Help is a minute away.

Arrochar is a village at the head of Loch Long on the A83, sitting in the shadow of the Arrochar Alps and forming the main approach to Ben Arthur — The Cobbler — and the other peaks of the Arrochar group. The village looks west across the loch towards Ardgartan forest, and heather moorland rises steeply from the shoreline to the summit ridges on every side. Sycamore and birch woodland cloaks the lower glen above the village, giving way to gorse and broom on the drier rocky slopes and then to heather on the high ground from late July. The old road north through Glen Croe carries the remaining farm land in the glen, with white clover on the improved pasture strips and elder in the dyke-sides.

Heather is the defining flow of Argyll — Calluna vulgaris covers the hills, glens and island moors from late July into September, offering one of the longest heather seasons in Scotland. Gorse and broom flower in two flushes — April and again in late summer — on every rocky coastal headland and glen-side. Sycamore is the principal woodland forage tree, prolific in the sheltered sea-loch valleys and estate policies from late April. Bramble is abundant on the lower ground and forest clearings from July. White clover grows on the improved coastal grassland of the Kintyre plain, the Isle of Bute and the Oban hinterland. Cross-leaved heath in the wetter blanket bogs supplements the main heather flow on the islands.