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Finstown is a village at the head of the Bay of Firth on the Orkney Mainland, sitting between the two inland Lochs of Harray and Stenness in the agricultural heartland of the central Mainland. The parish of Firth, of which Finstown is the main settlement, is one of the most productive farming areas in Orkney — a wide, gently rolling vale of improved pasture and arable fields that carries a particularly good clover flow in June and July. The lochs attract wildfowl and provide open water habitat adjacent to the farmland; the low ridge above the village to the south-west gives views across both lochs. Finstown's position midway between Kirkwall and Stromness makes it a natural centre for the central Mainland parishes.

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.