There have been many studies conducted on the maximum distance from their hive that honey bees will forage. Honey bees are fascinating and have a lot of financial implications, so they have been studied rather extensively. To the best of my knowledge there have been no peer reviewed studies on how close to their hive honey bees will forage.
I am often told by beekeepers that honey bees don't forage closer than 30 feet [or some other precise distance] from their hive. The theory goes that they don't have a waggle dance for such short distances, therefore they can't find flowers very close. I have never believed this.
Some beekeepers tell stories of seeing bees on flowers next to their hives and cite that as evidence of bees foraging over short distances. They are often scoffed at because these bees are probably from some other hive. Let's be honest, most honey bees look alike. Seeing bees foraging near a hive proves nothing.
I have a bee hive in the chicken run under some fruit trees, the other day I stood for some time and watched the bees. The honey bees foraged in the flowers, then they went into my hive. I watched for a while and saw dozens of bees forage in the fruit trees and then fly into that hive. This shows that bees can and do forage very close to their hive.
I have never seen bees fly from the hive to these close flowers so I can't know if they unsuccessfully attempted to forage further afield and visited these flowers on their return trip, or if they flew directly to them, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that the bees were foraging on flowers this close to their hive.
Even though I watched quite a lot of bees go from that tree into my hive I don't know if after they return to their hive and have some way to communicate about the location of these close resources. Perhaps they have a different waggle dance for short distances, perhaps they have some pheromone or other way to communicate this, or perhaps communication is not needed as scouting bees will forage close to the hive rather than go further looking for forage. I don't really know, what I do know is that honey bees do forage within a few feet of their hive, so any close flowers are not wasted.
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Bee hive under fruit trees in chicken run
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You can't see them in this picture, but this tree is full of honey bees
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Honey bees forage within a few feet of their hive, this tree had almost finished flowering
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