Bee swarm in Wigtown? Help is a minute away.

Wigtown is Scotland's National Book Town, a small burgh on the Bladnoch estuary in the Machars of Wigtownshire that has reinvented itself since the 1990s as a centre for second-hand and antiquarian booksellers, with thirty or more bookshops clustered around its broad market square and stately county buildings. The town is also Scotland's official Book Town — the title conferred by the Scottish Civic Trust — and its annual Wigtown Book Festival in late September draws writers and readers from across the country. The setting is gentle Machars farmland above the Wigtown Bay National Nature Reserve and the Bladnoch estuary saltmarsh, and the town square is unusual among Scottish burghs for its large central garden and tree planting. The Wigtown Bay NNR protects one of the most important estuarine and saltmarsh habitats in south-west Scotland, and the sea-aster and sea-lavender on the saltmarsh below the town provide a distinctive late-summer forage supplement. Sycamore on the town square trees and in the churchyard provides the May flow; hawthorn and blackthorn on the Machars field boundaries carry the spring blossom. White clover on the Machars improved farmland is the main June and July source; the estuary-edge elder and willowherb extends the season through August.

The mild Solway climate means spring starts earlier than most of Scotland. Blackthorn and hawthorn open the year; sycamore is important. Oilseed rape is moderate. Lime carries June in Dumfries and Stranraer. Galloway Forest contributes bilberry, rowan and late ling heather; coastal sea-campion on the Solway adds character. Himalayan balsam along the Nith gives a long late flow, and ivy on whitewashed cottage walls closes the year.