Not quite remote control surveillance ...

... but bees have been employed successfully to detect land mines and unexploded ordnance.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1608/MR1608.apps.pdf

Maxima

Some are better than others, and I would guess that one had been caught after she'd collected that pollen. If you sit and watch them come back some barely have any, others look as if they've been dropped in Barbara Cartland's mascara, and some have baskets of pollen almost as big as themselves.

I'm not having a go about animal cruelty or anything (foraging bees are at the end of their lives anyway, not that such a thing makes any difference) it was more an observation that the bees are not just carrying an RFID.

Go West

She was clearly dropped west of El Reg Towers.

Any mountains she can use nearby to navigate?

Fog

I think (I am not a bee researcher, but I do keep them and have read a lot of books. Most of which contradict each other) they use more visual clues than just far off mountains, including the sun.They do have polarised light sensitivity, so they can see where the sun is through dense cloud, so I would guess that landmarks are part of an arsenal of navigational aids.

Mine are also really fickle about going out. Too cold, too damp, too windy, too rainy and they stay indoors. Perhaps fog is just another one on the list of types of weather to avoid.

Bees deliberately collect pollen

No, they deliberately collect pollen as its their sole protein source and used indirectly to feed the larvae and the queen. The nectar is almost pure carbohydrate.

Tips hat

I stand corrected