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Dounby is a village in the west Mainland parish of Harray, set in the open agricultural landscape between the Loch of Harray and the higher moorland ground of Orkney's central ridge. The village is the main settlement for the western Mainland parishes and is surrounded by some of the best arable and improved pasture land in Orkney; the nearby Click Mill — Orkney's last surviving working horizontal watermill — stands on the Burn of Boardhouse just north of the village. The Loch of Harray immediately to the south-east is Orkney's largest freshwater loch. The farming landscape around Dounby carries oilseed rape, phacelia and white clover in rotation, giving resident bees a reliable sequence of flows from April through July.

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.