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Much Marcle is a large Herefordshire village on the ridge between the Leadon and Wye valleys east of Ledbury, best known as the home of Westons Cider and for its exceptional Norman and medieval church of St Bartholomew with its ancient yew tree said to be over a thousand years old. The Herefordshire BKA covers the village, and the surrounding landscape — the traditional cider-apple and perry-pear orchards that spread across the Leadon valley slopes in every direction, the hawthorn and field-maple-lined double-hedges of the old enclosures, the parkland limes and sweet chestnuts of Hellens manor grounds, and the scrub and bramble of the disused Ledbury railway cutting — gives local bees one of the richest orchard seasons in the county.

The season opens on tens of thousands of tonnes of orchard blossom — cider apple, culinary apple and traditional perry pear — across the Leominster and Hereford belt. Hawthorn on deep double-hedges follows; hop gardens provide a quieter supplementary forage. Lime and sweet chestnut dot the market towns. The Black Mountain foothills add bilberry, heather and gorse to hives on the county edge, and bramble is dense throughout. A long, strong ivy flow on red-sandstone churches and orchard windbreaks carries the year out.