Hi Lloyd

The bees I was watching were not marked, but we had carefully logged the apiaries in the area and bees leaving oilseed rape fields flew towards all of them, including the apiary at 9 km.

Other long distance reports include those of Eckert in Wyoming (from memory as my reprints are elsewhere at the moment, up to 8.5 miles (13.6 km) in one year but not in a second?):

Eckert, J.E.  1933.  The flight range of the honey bee.  JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.
47:257-285.

Also African honeybees dancing indicating 13.7 km:

http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9403&L=BEE-L&P=R7806&I=-3

I seem to recall Andy Nachbaur on here talking about his bees flying 8 miles (about 13 km) to an isolated orange grove.

And finally, pasted below, some research from the UK.  Remember that the Cutler study which Jim referred to placed bees in 100 x 100 m plots, presumably 50 m from the edge.  Control plots would be 50 + 300 = 350 m away.  In the study below (granted, this could be a special circumstance) 'only 10% foraged within 500m of the hive'.

Of course, beekeepers are usually more interested in productive foraging distances, which are usually rather less.

all the best

Gavin

M. Beekman and F. L. W. Ratnieks (2000) Long-range foraging by the honey-bee, Apis mellifera L.  
Functional Ecology 14: 490 - 496.
 
Abstract:

1. Waggle dances of honey-bees (Apis mellifera L.) were decoded to determine where and how far the bees foraged during the blooming of heather (Calluna vulgaris L.) in August 1996 using a hive located in Sheffield, UK, east of the heather moors. The median distance foraged was 6·1 km, and the mean 5·5 km. Only 10% of the bees foraged within 0·5 km of the hive whereas 50% went more than 6 km, 25% more than 7·5 km and 10% more than 9·5 km from the hive.

2. These results are in sharp contrast with previous studies in which foraging distances were much closer to the hive. In May 1997 the mean foraging distance was 1 km, showing that long-range dancing is not the rule in Sheffield.

3. The observed foraging distances described in this study may not be exceptional in a patchy environment where differences in patch size and patch quality are large. When travel distances to patches are large, distant patches can probably be utilized only by individuals that live in groups and recruit foragers to the patches found. Only then are the benefits of scouting for distant patches high enough to enable the exploitation of these patches.

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************