Bee swarm in Forest Row? Help is a minute away.

Forest Row is a large High Weald village at the southern gateway to Ashdown Forest — the ancient hunting ground of heather moorland, acid grassland and mixed woodland that stretches north towards Hartfield and Withyham. The village sits at the confluence of the Forest Way railway path and the River Medway headwaters, with Tablehurst and Plaw Hatch biodynamic farms to the north and the Ashdown Forest proper accessible within half a mile. The heather flow from late July into August is the defining season for local beekeepers, many of whom move hives onto the Forest for the dark, intensely flavoured Ashdown crop, then exploit the subsequent ivy flow on the sheltered valley sides through October.

The early flow starts on blackthorn and wild cherry, before hawthorn lights the hedges of the Weald. Late May to July carries the colonies on sweet chestnut around Heathfield, bramble across every common and hedge bank, and — most characteristically — heather on Ashdown Forest from late July into August, giving the dark, jelly-like Ash Down heather honey some members still cut-comb for show. Ivy closes the year on sheltered sandstone lanes and the tall old churchyards of Rye, Lewes and Battle.