Bee swarm in Birsay? Help is a minute away.

Birsay is a village and parish at the north-west tip of the Orkney Mainland, facing the tidal island of the Brough of Birsay — the site of a Norse and Pictish settlement where the ruins of a Norse longhouse village and a Romanesque chapel remain. The Palace of the Earls of Orkney, a substantial sixteenth-century ruin, stands in the village itself. Birsay occupies an exposed position on the Atlantic-facing coast; the land is predominantly rough grazing and moorland at the headland, giving way to better farming ground inland towards Evie and Dounby. The parish contains some of the most northerly beekeeping sites on the Orkney Mainland. Gorse on the rough coastal ground flowers from early spring; clover on the inland farms provides a reliable early summer flow.

White clover on the rich improved pastures of the Orkney Mainland is the defining honey flow, running through June and July and producing a light, mild honey characteristic of the islands. Oilseed rape is grown on the better arable ground around Kirkwall, Finstown and the Stenness basin and provides an important April-to-May spring flow. Phacelia, now widely sown as a bee-friendly cover crop by Orkney farmers, extends the arable season into summer. Heather on the moorland ridges of Hoy and the western Mainland fringes from mid-July through September gives late-season colonies a valuable top-up flow. Hawthorn in sheltered croft enclosures and gardens is an important May source, earlier than it opens on the Scottish mainland. Sycamore in the sheltered town gardens and school grounds of Kirkwall and Stromness drives the May urban flow. Gorse on rough grazing ground and cliff edges flowers from March and provides early pollen for spring build-up. Bramble on disturbed and fallow ground through July and August, and ivy on older stone buildings and dykes in October, close the season.