Bee swarm in Pittenweem? Help is a minute away.

Pittenweem is a working fishing village and burgh on the East Neuk of Fife, its harbour still active with the creel and line boats that have worked these waters since medieval times. The village takes its name from the Pictish word for cave — a reference to the sea cave of St Fillan below the village, now a pilgrimage site — and its tight streets of white-harled and colourwashed gable-fronted houses, crow-stepped chimney stacks and narrow closes are among the best-preserved examples of traditional Scottish vernacular architecture. Pittenweem has a strong tradition as a centre for Scottish artists, and its August arts festival fills the harbour and the houses with studio exhibitions. The East Neuk forage calendar is shaped by the coastal position and the Fife arable hinterland: oilseed rape on the farmland between Pittenweem and Anstruther and Elie gives a strong early-season flow from April into May; hawthorn on the coastal hedgerows and sycamore on the village lane trees carry spring into early summer. White clover on the improved pastures of the East Neuk farmland is the main June and July source. Sea-aster on the cliff-base rock and coastal scrub provides a late supplement; bramble on the field boundaries and coastal bank scrub carries colonies into September. Ivy on the older harled properties closes the year.

Oilseed rape is the defining early Fife flow across the central plain. Raspberry canes on the Howe of Fife add an unusual early-summer crop. Sycamore and lime carry May into June in St Andrews, Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline and Cupar. The Lomond Hills and parts of the north Fife moors give bell and ling heather. Coastal sea-aster and samphire along the East Neuk add seasoning; ivy on old fisher-town gables closes the year.