What is the longest distance that honeybees have been known to
fly in search of forage?
 
Here in NZ we often use 3-5 km in describing the area around a
hive that bees are likely to travel.
 
I do recall, however, a description of bees found to have flown 8
miles (?) from their hive in the course of some alfalfa research.
The researcher was using the Cordovan strain as a marker for some
reason in the experiment, and found bees from those hives in
fields at the known distance from the only possible source of the
bees.
 
Does anyone know that reference?  Alternatively, what other
references are there to substantiated long distance foraging?
 
-------------------------------------
          Nick Wallingford
      Bay of Plenty Polytechnic
 (East coast, N Island, New Zealand)
     Internet [log in to unmask]
-------------------------------------