We've timed bees over 2 mile trip, 4 mile round trip.  They can cover a mile in less than 4 minutes.  What is a bigger factor than load is the orientation circling at hive before leaving and again in field before returning. to the hive.  For short distances, that behavior consumes a significant part of the time of the trip.  As we clocked bees over 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2.0  we found little difference in the trip times at the shorter distances, due to this orientation flight behavior , which was more or less a constant- the actual transect flight was relatively quick.    At longer distances, the orientation flight became a smaller part of the time of the trip.  Our surprise was that loaded or not didn't make much difference.  I assume that much of the differences in reports of speed of flight are due to the investigators failing to take into consideration the orientation part of the flight.  



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