Posted: Wed Sep 05, 07 12:24 pm Post subject: How far can bees find their way home?
The reason I ask is that last night when I was stopped at traffic lights a bee landed on my windscreen. I assumed it'd fly off when I started moving again but it didn't. It clung to the windscreen for about 10km before flying off. So:-
- will it be able to find its way back to the rest of its colony?
- will it be accepted and taken in by another colony?
- have I condemmed it to certain death?
I hope it had its passport with it as I picked it up in Switzerland & left it in France (I probably broke all sorts of EU regulations importing it into France but the border guards were off on their teabreak when I crossed the border)
lottie
Joined: 11 Aug 2005 Posts: 5059 Location: ceredigion
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 07 1:02 pm Post subject:
usually the answer is up to 3 miles---but I believe up to 8 has been recorded. If you move bees it has to be less than 3ft or more than 3 miles or most of them just go back to where the hive was originally. Sorry! but at least it had a holiday before it died---if it was loaded with pollen they may let it in a stray hive, but it's not likely to go there.