Bee swarm in Bath? Help is a minute away.

Bath is a UNESCO World Heritage Georgian city set in the Avon valley at the foot of the Cotswold escarpment, its honey-coloured limestone terraces, Royal Crescent and Circus enclosing walled gardens that have been managed for centuries. The Royal Victoria Park lime avenues, the Prior Park landscape garden with its Palladian bridge and orchard terraces, and the Bath Abbey churchyard lime trees give bees a generous and varied forage from early spring through to autumn ivy. Bath Beekeepers Association is among the most active in the South West, with experienced collectors across BA1 and BA2.

The season opens on blackthorn and willow along the Avon riverside at Saltford and Keynsham, followed by hawthorn and apple blossom through the Chew valley orchards in May. Lime is the defining June flow in Bath — the plane trees of Great Pulteney Street, the lime avenues of Royal Victoria Park and the Prior Park landscape garden are particularly productive. Mendip-fringe limestone grasslands around Chew Magna, Bishop Sutton and Clutton carry wild thyme, knapweed and marjoram from June into July. Bramble is dense on the coal-measure slopes above Radstock, Midsomer Norton and Timsbury; willowherb and himalayan balsam flush the Avon towpath below Saltford and Keynsham through August. Ivy on Bath stone walls and village churchyards closes the year into October.