Bee swarm in Cricklade? Help is a minute away.

Cricklade is a small market town on the upper Thames in north Wiltshire, a few miles below the river's source in the Cotswold watershed, and one of the most characterful settlements in the county — it was one of the original Saxon burhs fortified by Alfred the Great. The North Meadow National Nature Reserve on the Cricklade water-meadows holds one of the finest stands of wild snakeshead fritillaries in the country, and its hay-meadow flora — meadow buttercup, pignut, cuckooflower and great burnet — provides early spring forage for local bees. The surrounding landscape of water-meadows, riverside willows, old-enclosure hedgerows and the upper Thames floodplain carries an unusually diverse flower-rich sward that few Wiltshire towns can match. Swindon BKA and local Wiltshire beekeepers cover the area.

Early blackthorn and hawthorn along the cowslip-strewn down edges open the year, followed by oilseed rape on the clay vale around Chippenham. Sainfoin is still grown here, and chalk grassland herbs — thyme, marjoram, knapweed, yellow rattle — give a herb-scented character to summer Wiltshire honey that connoisseurs notice. Lime lines Salisbury, Marlborough and Devizes streets; sweet chestnut at Savernake contributes to June. A small but reliable late ivy flow on flint churchyards closes a long chalkland season.