Quick question for y’all, I’ll be getting my first hive in about 2 weeks and I was wondering what the average flight distance is for a honey bee and do honey bees go to crops much? Soybeans or corn?
Stan Gore: Once bees fly, they fly 500miles and die. Studies show bees fly several miles to forage. Again, once that bee is flying, the closer the things are more productive they will be. Having water close by helps a ton.
Chance Sumner: There will be water close, I was just asking about the crops because I have crop ground all around me interspersed with wooded Creek beds and pasture land, just wasn’t sure how much I would have to worry about pesticides/herbicides
Chance Sumner: Ok thanks, that was about the last piece of the puzzle I wasn’t sure about. I thought bees only foraged about 1/4 mile but someone mentioned to me today they can go up to 7 miles and that had me worried
Mary Laura Fitzgerald: Chance Sumner – they can go up to 5 miles or so if necessary. They generally don’t go that far if there is forage closer. They prefer large concentrations of forage, so they will fly a mile from the hive to get to a whole field of something they like, rather than going 500 feet from the hive to just a small section of the plant, or one or two bushes.
Mary Laura Fitzgerald: Ours don’t go to soy or corn much at all, especially feed corn. The GMO soy has been bred with flowers so small that they can’t get nectar from them. Corn pollen has very little protein, and is a source of last resort for them. They prefer other pollen if they can get it.
James Slemp: Your first year you will have to watch and see if they get into asnything causing bee kill in front of your hive and whether theres enough for them to forage on around the crop land and if not feed them to get them two boxes of comb drawn and ck in summer making sure they have some surplus to live on or feed them again and do mite counts and stay on top of beetles if there a prob in your area.
Richard Nelson: Mainly 1 1/2 mile diameter from hive
David Mabray Sr.: 3 miles is about the normal limit. They are like you at a buffet. They will pass some things up if a favorite is available even if a little farther. When favorites run out they move down the list.
James Slemp: Iv watched 8 colonies fly over a watermelon field they were there to polinate after farmer called me and said your bees are not in my watermelon field they actualkly flew over mellons to privet hedge 15 ft tall in bloom used as wind breaks between fields and by end of day farmer had his workers cut hedge down to get bees back on his melons
Mary Laura Fitzgerald: James Slemp – one of my mentors told me a similar story about someone wanting pollination of the plants in one field, but the plants in the next field were way more appetizing. ?
James Slemp: Mary Laura Fitzgerald Iv showed many farmers over the years that in an area as big as a 3 bdr rancher theres more white clover flowers when in bloom then an acre of squash and have had some farmers cut vacant lots to get rid of flowering weeds when there not picking good shaped squash which is usually what happens to them with poor pollination they dont grow perfect so buyers for stores dont want them.
Steven Rinaldi: Does the hole hive go so the same area or do the scatter all different directions?
David Mabray Sr.: The girls return and do the bee dance. It informs the others direction, distance and amount. Only so many will go so as to not waste resources. They’re pretty smart.
Roy Hall: I guess the most prolific source they would head to be it distance or not ?
Tasha Elwood: THIS IS A COPY AND PASTE FROM ONLINEAs a rule of thumb the foraging area around a beehive extends for two miles (3 km), although bees have been observed foraging twice and three times this distance from the hive.
Roy Hall: TASHA would you do a marathon, if the food source is around the corner ???.
Tasha Elwood: No I definitely would not but the way I read the question he was looking for distance. Worried about pesticides.
David Mabray Sr.: If it’s liver and onions around the corner but 2 blocks away they have bacon and ham guess where I’m going. The bees are the same.
Tasha Elwood: I totally Agree.
James Slemp: In the spring they have several sources blooming at same time that get worked its not till summer when most sources that were available in spring are now not there so then they increase there foraging area to find food and here in some cases need to be fed during those dry periods till fall flowerrs start the bloom..
Roy Hall: James it was rhetoric ??? .
Dennis Wedge: If it boom’s honey are there. Probably will travel about 2miles