Scientists made the matter clear for us. They made an experiment by taking twenty bees from on the edge of a lake. First, they mark each bee with a sport of paint. Next, they took the bees six mile in land in a box. Then they set them free. Seventeen of them returned to the hive. The three that did home may have been young bees that had not made many flights around their home.
Another day they took in the same way seventeen bees only three miles away over the lake. When they set them free, they flew about in all directions. Not one of them came home to the hive! They could not find their way back their way back had over the water because they had no landmarks to guide them. They had never been over the lake in search of food.