Bee swarm in Airth? Help is a minute away.

Airth is a village on the south bank of the Forth estuary in the Falkirk council area, set on the low ridge above the Carse of Stirling and dominated by Airth Castle, now a hotel, which stands above the village on its wooded slope. The Forth Valley Beekeepers' Association covers the area, and the surrounding landscape — the extensive oilseed rape fields of the Forth Carse below the village providing the main spring flow, the improved white-clover grazing of the Carse floodplain through summer, the hawthorn and elder hedgerows of the ridge lanes, the Forth estuary shore willow scrub and rough grassland, and the lime and sycamore of the castle grounds — makes Airth one of the better forage positions in the Falkirk area.

Oilseed rape on the Forth Carse between Larbert, Grangemouth and Airth provides the main April-May flow, one of the most productive in central Scotland. White clover on the improved Carse pastures and the amenity grasslands of the Falkirk and Larbert parks is the mid-summer backbone from June through July. Sycamore is the dominant early flow tree on road margins and hedgerows throughout the council area. The Forth and Clyde Canal and Union Canal towpaths carry himalayan balsam strongly from late July into September — one of the defining features of the Falkirk beekeeping calendar. Hawthorn on the Carron valley hedgerows and the canal embankments peaks in May; gorse and broom appear on the Kilsyth Hills fringe above Bonnybridge and on the Slamannan Plateau in the south. Heather on the Carron Valley moorland above Denny and on the Slamannan Plateau provides a modest late-season upland supplement. Ivy on older stone buildings closes the calendar in October.