On Sat, 26 Mar 1994 Nick Wallingford ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
 
> 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?
 
On Mon, 28 Mar 1994 11:19:22 -0600 Carlos Hernan Vergara Bricenio
                                  <[log in to unmask]> answered
 
> I did some research on foraging distances of African honey bees in a tropical
> forest in Panama, using their dance comunication . The longest distance I
> could measure with precision was 13,669.7 meters and I had some dancers
> that were indicating they were flying farther, but after this distance the
> curve turns asymptotic so, no precise reading is possible.  There is a
> reference to a similar work done with European honey bees:
>
> Visscher, P. K. & T. D. Seeley. 1982. Ecology 63 (6): 1790-1801
 
 
Okay, the longest foraging distance is an interesting point to know,
but the beekeepers is more interested by the average wing distance of
his bees !  That is evident in the question of Nick .  This average
(and probably the maximum too) varies from a strain of bee to another.
On this point of view, see after the opinion of Brother Adam (today 95
old) in his book <Breeding the honey bees> (Northern Bee Books ed) :
 
About the wing-power he said (1982): (p. 59)
 
" I may quote an example from my own experience.  Until 1916 when we had
" the Old-English bee, which shared with the other West European races
" an extraordinary wing-power, we regularly obtained a crop of heather
" honey from our home apiary.  The nearest heather was some 3.6 km
" distant at a height of nearly 400 m above sea-level.  In spite of this
" distance and a rise of close to 400 m the native bee and her crosses
" in 1915 made an average of 50 kg of heather honey per colony.  Since
" then only very seldom and then only when the weather was exceptionally
" good have we had heather honey crops at this home apiary.
 
So .. seems the N-Z description correct but you could record some
experiences with your own bee lineage to reduce the difference (3-5km).
 
Jean-Marie                [log in to unmask]