Bee swarm in Craven Arms? Help is a minute away.

Craven Arms is a small railway-junction and livestock-market town in the Onny valley of south Shropshire, standing at the foot of Wenlock Edge and the Long Mynd and serving as a centre for the farming parishes of the Clun Forest and the Corvedale. Shropshire Beekeepers Ludlow branch covers the town and the surrounding upland border country. The Onny and Clun river meadows carry willow and meadowsweet through spring; the limestone and shale slopes of Wenlock Edge above Stokesay and Wistanstow carry hawthorn, field maple and dog rose in an ancient hedgerow system; bilberry and ling heather on the Long Mynd supplement the season in late summer; and the ivy on the old stone walls of Stokesay Castle and the limestone churchyards gives a strong autumn close.

Early sycamore and hawthorn open on the Severn Valley; oilseed rape is common on the North Shropshire plain. Lime at Shrewsbury, Ludlow and Oswestry gives a strong June flow. Bramble is dense; the mosses of Whixall, Fenn and Bettisfield contribute a patchy but distinctive late summer flow of bog rosemary and cross-leaved heath. The Long Mynd, Stiperstones and Clee Hills provide bilberry and late ling heather — still migrated to by Shropshire beekeepers in August. Ivy on the old red-brick farms and timber-framed cottages closes the year.