Just wondering how far honey bees will travel. Checking bear bait this morning and see there was a lot of honey bees around. First time I ever seen them in this spot. I'm pretty sure I have to be miles from anyone who might have hives. Makes me wonder if there could possibly be a wild hives somewhere close?

Mac

"Never Forget Which Way Is Up!"

If I recall, it’s about two miles. Wild hives are a lot more plentiful than people think

Here in south-central Ohio, we figure about 5 miles max. We are in extreme drought conditions currently and they are foraging farther out than usual. We take honey off in early June and leave everything later for the bees. Had a good harvest, but then rain totally stopped and they are really hurting for nectar. We usually start feeding in January to get them through the winter. We started feeding sugar bricks this weekend... 3-4 months early. If they can find a source like a bear bait, they will be all over it. It could be wild bees or from someone's hives. hard to tell.

I have not tracked them but everything I read and heard says mostly 2 miles some places I have seen it say 3.

ferral colonies are very common and where I have got all my bees from. well except some queens
I have bought when I have lost some.

Up to five miles but bees like most won't waste energy so typically within two if they can gather all they need in that two. The five is more of a only thing available distance.

Got a friend of mine that has some colonies and he claims they'll go up to 5 miles but I have no proof of this.

Three mile radius. But seldom will bees fly that far. Here in western Pa, with knotweed finishing up and goldenrod busting out, I don’t think any bees in my four bee yards need to fly more than 1/2 a mile.

I’m betting there’s a bee tree handy to where you saw them.

There's tons of research that follows with what everyone has said above--- bees basically will stick as close to home as possible and 2 miles is a typical range. Plenty of studies do show them out at the 3 mile mark foraging particularly when there's preferred resources out there such as Heather fields across the pond or when there is nothing else closer and they are out of food. Most of the activity out farther than that is considering more like long range surveyors rather than foragers.

I'm going to take a guess here and speculate that theres likely a beekeeper with a yard within that range where your bait is located. Or there was in the past and one swarmed to a tree etc from a managed colony. Historically Michigan and Wisconsin have been considered pretty similar from a beekeeping stand point. No shortage of pollination with ag land in the southern areas particularly dairy country which has always lead to a decent colony count for both states. I dont really know the details of Wisconsin in recent years but I'd have to believe it has followed the same pattern as Michigan with a large % increase in colonies over the last 1-2 decades driven by California almond pollination. Maybe a beekeeper from Wisconsin will weigh in and can give us a perspective. Over time the range in Michigan has expanded in most areas but there are huge increases in the north where there were few bees before. A couple of decades ago here the bigger operations were around 5k and operated more so in the southern part of the state. Now there are more bees sitting in the north than in the southern part of the state except for during spring pollination. Most of the savvy beekeepers are like decent trappers and keep a real low profile particularly in this day and age of very high competition. It'd be unusual for you to know they were around even in the middle of no where.