The average distance now being recorded is 6Km so lets get up to date and forget the rule of 3 regrading foraging.
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It is a harmful mistake to beekeepers if he believes that bees can forage honey yield from long distances.
There are many researches in Internet which tell that if fields do not have food enough, bee fly long distances and it is several kilometres.
But when you as beekeeper has a good honey flow, the average distance is under 1 km. If pastures are poor, same hives may search food on radius 6 km. (English research)
What does it mean?
When you have a hive site and you are going to get good yield, good flower souces must be under 1 km radius.
My experience is that if the distance to rape
field is over 1 km, 50% of yield will be missing compared to hives which are just moved on rape field.
If weather is moist (small rains) and the distance is over 2 km, bees will not get surpluss honey in their supers. Hives on rape field gathered moist honey and instead of one week they needed 3 weeks to get hive full of capped honey.
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HIVE NUMBER PER SITE
If honey flow is on low level, bees must gather honey from larger area. You understand that if there are more hives, there are less nectar per forager and bees must work longer to get stomach full.