Bee swarm in Farrington Gurney? Help is a minute away.

Farrington Gurney is a former coal-measure village on the A37 between Clutton and Shepton Mallet, its grey-stone streetscape sitting at the edge of the Somerset coalfield plateau. Bramble is dense on the old spoil-bank hedgerows south of the village toward High Littleton, and hawthorn is thick on the field boundaries reaching out toward Temple Cloud and Paulton. The walled gardens of the older cottages and the orchard strips on the Paulton Road fringe hold apple and plum giving bees a reliable late-April flow when the rape fields on the plateau are in full bloom.

The season opens on blackthorn and willow along the Avon riverside at Saltford and Keynsham, followed by hawthorn and apple blossom through the Chew valley orchards in May. Lime is the defining June flow in Bath — the plane trees of Great Pulteney Street, the lime avenues of Royal Victoria Park and the Prior Park landscape garden are particularly productive. Mendip-fringe limestone grasslands around Chew Magna, Bishop Sutton and Clutton carry wild thyme, knapweed and marjoram from June into July. Bramble is dense on the coal-measure slopes above Radstock, Midsomer Norton and Timsbury; willowherb and himalayan balsam flush the Avon towpath below Saltford and Keynsham through August. Ivy on Bath stone walls and village churchyards closes the year into October.