Bee swarm in Wigmore? Help is a minute away.

Wigmore is a small market village in the far north of Herefordshire below the Mortimer country of the Shropshire Hills, dominated by the impressive motte-and-bailey ruin of Wigmore Castle above the village rooflines. The Herefordshire BKA covers the north of the county, and the surrounding landscape — the hawthorn, blackthorn and field-maple hedgerows of the old Mortimer enclosures on the Teme-valley limestone, the orchard-dotted meadows of the Lugg and Arrow valleys to the south, the bilberry and heather of Mortimer Forest just across the Shropshire border, the hop-garden remnants and mixed arable of the Leintwardine and Brampton Bryan lanes — gives local bees a Marches season of particular variety, with the limestone plant communities of the Wigmore escarpment providing herbs rarely found in lowland Herefordshire.

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.