Bee swarm in Polegate? Help is a minute away.

Polegate is a Wealden market town where the railway from London branches toward Eastbourne and the Hailsham line. Set at the foot of the South Downs below Willingdon Hill and surrounded by the low-lying Pevensey Levels to the east, the town combines good urban forage from lime and sycamore in its residential streets with the richer country forage of the Levels and the Downs scarp. The Cuckoo Trail — the former Hailsham Railway line now converted to a popular walking and cycling greenway — runs north from the edge of town through hawthorn and bramble scrub, elder and willowherb margins all the way to Heathfield. Eastbourne & District Beekeepers has its apiary very close to the town.

The early flow starts on blackthorn and wild cherry, before hawthorn lights the hedges of the Weald. Late May to July carries the colonies on sweet chestnut around Heathfield, bramble across every common and hedge bank, and — most characteristically — heather on Ashdown Forest from late July into August, giving the dark, jelly-like Ash Down heather honey some members still cut-comb for show. Ivy closes the year on sheltered sandstone lanes and the tall old churchyards of Rye, Lewes and Battle.