My hives are in the back garden, about 10 metres from the house. I used to orient my hives parallel to the fence, which runs a few degrees off West-East, which looked neater and meant the entrances were not pointing across the garden, so the bees did not fly at us in the garden. This meant the sun hit the entrances, which faced slightly SW, around 9:30 to 10AM.
But the hives did not thrive. So I asked around (including on this forum) about whether there was any truth in the story you see in old beekeeping books, about turning your entrances so the morning sun hits them. It is meant to make the bees rise earlier, and then they go get more nectar (before the other hives in the area wake up). Opinions were divided 50/50, yes/no.
So I tried rotating the hives about 30 degrees. Turns out it still looks tidy next to the fence, even though they are not parallel. And the sun hits the entrances earlier. The bees now go flying 30-60 minutes earlier and the hives seem to be doing OK.
So my first answer is: in the UK point your entrances South or SE.
There are other considerations. In the UK (and I imagine in NZ) it gets hot at midday in the summer sun. At this point some shade is desirable. So if you have the option, place your hives on the East side of a tree which will shade it from noon on.
Also I am lucky because as the sun goes lower in the sky now, as winter approaches, the house blocks early morning sun on the hives. This means the bees do not come out when it is too cold. I have heard and read several times (once from Finman) that if bees are tricked by bright light to come out when it is really cold, as soon as they settle on something they freeze and die.
I run my comb "warm way" so it blocks draughts from the entrance.
With regards the 30 hives versus 4 hives thing. Finland is a very different climate and forage to the UK. I have seen large numbers of hives in one apiary (the biggest was 80 hives) but they were breeding apiaries where the operator was trying to flood the area with a particular strain. Even for pollination services, which need lots of hives, I imagine bee farmers would spread hives out in batches of say 4 because that would be more efficient than 30 hives in one field. A bee farmer told me our rural village could probably support 20 hives because there is a good variety of forage round here, not just fields of OSR. Right now there are probably 13 hives between 5 beekeepers plus 4 feral colonies (so you could view us as one 17 hive apiary) and our honey crops are not huge.
Hives in a circle would be a great way to tease un-scientific people. You could tell them the hives are arranged like an ancient stone circle to draw on the Earth Energy. And at midsummer we have to dance naked round them.