Bee swarm in Brodick? Help is a minute away.

Brodick is the main village, ferry terminal and commercial centre of the Isle of Arran, a sandstone-built settlement curving around Brodick Bay below the granite ridge of Goatfell. The National Trust for Scotland's Brodick Castle and Country Park, immediately north of the village, provides one of the finest structured forage environments in western Scotland: the walled kitchen garden, formal terraces and vast rhododendron collection supply early pollen and nectar, while the parkland lime, sycamore and horse chestnut give a strong June flow. Above the castle the ground rises quickly into heather moorland; ling and bell heather cover the Arran hills from late July through September, giving island beekeepers a rare combination of productive parkland forage and accessible upland heather within a few minutes of the shore.

Hawthorn is the spring anchor on the Garnock valley field boundaries and the coastal farmland strips from mid-May. White clover dominates the mid-summer flow on the improved pastures around Irvine, Kilwinning and the coastal plain; the Eglinton Country Park lime and sycamore woodland provide the main structured town forage from June through July. Himalayan balsam has colonised the Garnock Water, Annick Water and River Irvine corridors, producing a sustained late-summer flow from mid-July into September. Gorse and broom are prolific on the rough hillside ground above the coast towns; heather starts on the Renfrewshire hill fringe above Beith and Kilbirnie from mid-July. The coastal grassland carries bird's-foot trefoil and sea clover through the full summer months.