Bee swarm in Haddenham? Help is a minute away.

Haddenham is one of the largest fen-edge villages in Cambridgeshire, set on a clay island above the Black Fen between Ely and March, with the windmill tower on its ridge visible for miles across the surrounding flatlands. The Cambridgeshire BKA covers the area, and the surrounding landscape — the arable fen fields draining into the Old West River to the north, the riverside willows and alders of the Aldreth and Willingham bank, the spring-flowering blackthorn and hawthorn on the old embankment hedges, the oilseed rape and field beans of the black fen to the west toward Chatteris, and the marsh orchid and yellow iris of the Haddenham Great Fen restoration project near Aldreth — gives local bees a productive black-fen and river-edge season.

Oilseed rape is the dominant early flow across the Fens; field beans add to the picture in June. Hawthorn, blackthorn and cherry plum fill the farm hedges that still mark every drove road. The lime avenues of Cambridge, Ely and Huntingdon provide a concentrated urban flow, and willow, hemp agrimony and purple loosestrife along the Great Ouse and Cam sustain hives well into July. Late summer brings sainfoin on chalk field margins and a modest heather crop on Thetford Heath gravels on the county edge.