Bee swarm in St Margaret's Hope? Help is a minute away.

St Margaret's Hope is the main village of South Ronaldsay, the southernmost of the Orkney Mainland group of islands, accessible from the Mainland by the Churchill Barriers — the causeways built during the Second World War to protect the naval anchorage at Scapa Flow. The village sits on a sheltered bay facing the Flow; its stone-built houses and small pier give it a quiet, self-contained character. South Ronaldsay is predominantly farmland with some coastal heath, and the village is surrounded by good improved pasture and rough grazing. The nearby Italian Chapel, built by Italian prisoners of war, is a noted landmark. Local bees have access to clover pasture and the coastal vegetation of the South Ronaldsay headlands from late May through August.

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.