Bee swarm in Peterlee? Help is a minute away.

Peterlee is a post-war new town on the Durham coalfield plateau above the Heritage Coast, planned in the 1950s and named after the miners' union leader Peter Lee. Its eastern boundary runs close to Castle Eden Dene — one of the longest and finest ancient woodland gorges in northern England — where yew, ash, wych elm and hawthorn form a canopy over a rich understorey of wild garlic, dog's mercury and primrose above the magnesian limestone ravine floor. The limestone grasslands of the Durham Heritage Coast path, running north past Blackhall Rocks to Seaham and south towards Horden and Easington, carry bloody cranesbill, common spotted orchid, rock rose and wild thyme — exceptional late-spring forage on some of the rarest grassland in the country. Rosebay willowherb and bramble flush the former colliery sites that ring the town, and ivy on old stone walls closes the season.

Spring is slow to start. Sycamore and hawthorn carry the early flow; oilseed rape is moderate on the lowland. Lime fills June in Durham, Bishop Auckland and Darlington. The defining late-summer flow is North Pennines heather — Teesdale, Weardale, Edmundbyers — still producing some of the finest ling honey in England. Rosebay willowherb is heavy on ex-colliery land; bilberry on upper moorland adds a supplement. Ivy on cottage walls in the dales closes the year.