Bee swarm in Pengam? Help is a minute away.

Pengam is a valley village between Bargoed and New Tredegar on the western bank of the Rhymney River, best known as the home of Lewis School Pengam — one of the oldest grammar schools in Wales. The village sits on the valley side above the Rhymney with views of the steep bilberry and bracken slopes opposite. Hawthorn and sycamore on the valley hedgerows, elder on the railway banks, bramble on the reclaimed industrial land and the moorland gorse above Pengarnddu give a long forage calendar characteristic of the Welsh coalfield valleys.

Sycamore is the defining tree across these valleys, blanketing every south-facing slope and delivering a generous May flow almost regardless of colony location. Hawthorn on valley-side hedge lines and blackthorn in scrub above the terraces follows through late spring. White clover persists on allotment gardens, valley-floor parks and the gentler upland grazings from June onward. Bramble is dense on reclaimed colliery tips, forest margins and Sirhowy and Ebbw valley sides; bilberry and ling heather on the Gelligaer, Mynydd Islwyn and Mynydd Llangynidr plateaux provide a useful late-August supplement for hives on the valley rim. Alder and willow along the Rhymney, Sirhowy and Ebbw corridors contribute early pollen; meadowsweet and purple loosestrife on wetter valley-floor ground extend the late-summer flow. Ivy on old stone chapel walls and valley-side garden walls closes the year.