Apis cerana indica bees were trained to visit dishes containing scented sugar syrup at site which entailed flying up or down hill slopes with different gradients. it was found that practically all the foraging bees collected syrup up to about 650m from the hive along gentle gradients (below 10o), and up to 250-300m along steep gradients (above 20o). Taking 75% of the total foragers as the major foraging force of a colony, the economic foraging range was estimated to be not more than 800m over gentle slopes in a hilly terrain under the temperate and climatic conditions of the western Himalayas, and about half this distance over the steep slopes. the maximum range recoreded for a single forager was 1423m along a gentle slope, and 809m along a steep slope.