Bee swarm in Letchworth? Help is a minute away.

Letchworth Garden City was the world's first garden city, founded in 1903 by Ebenezer Howard to demonstrate that town and country could be successfully combined — and for honey bees, the experiment succeeded magnificently. The wide tree-lined avenues of the Arts and Crafts residential areas, the generous gardens, the Norton Common nature reserve and the surrounding Hertfordshire chalk farmland together produce a long, varied and productive forage season. Limes planted along every major boulevard give a powerful June flow; hawthorn fills the town's generous hedgerows; bramble is heavy on the common margins; the chalk arable around Willian and Icklefrod carries sainfoin and oilseed rape. Letchworth's density of mature ornamental trees is exceptional for a town of its size.

The chalk uplands of the north — around Baldock, Royston and Letchworth — give oilseed rape, sainfoin and a solid hawthorn flow. The southern clay country leans on sycamore, horse chestnut and field maple, with the limes of Hertford, Harpenden and St Albans producing a classic June crop. Ashridge, Tring Park and the Chilterns edge add beech forage. Bramble on the commons and rosebay willowherb along the Lee Valley corridor carry midsummer. Ivy closes a long, productive year.