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Knowledge (local) can also be used to gather information. Either skill takes 1d4 hours.
This is where "rumors" can come in handy. If the Queen's been missing for a day, only a few NPCs may have any information. Discovering a rumor through Gather Information that "The Queen's personal cook didn't make her traditional breakfast yesterday" might lead the PCs to speak to them and find the next lead.
Regarding Knowledge checks to identify creatures, create a personal rule of thumb and stick with it for consistency. Your players won't feel neglected or tricked. My personal rule of thumb is to give them either 1) Special Attacks, 2) Special Defenses, 3) Special Abilities, 4) Weaknesses or 5) Lore for every +5 they beat the DC by. Just rolling the DC gets the creature's name, typical alignment, type and subtype (and all associated traits of those types).
That way, if they beat the DC by +25, they get everything, consistently. It rewards players who focus.
Alright, this is easy-ish to help with.
Monsters
A successful knowledge check gives the creature's name and one thing you know about fighting it. This could be it heals damage over time or that it can turn invisibilty whenever it wants. Keep it vague. For every 5 by which they beat the knowledge DC they get one more useful piece of information. Perhaps it's healing stems from regeneration or it's ability to turn invisible is because it can cast spells.
Knowledge checks for places tell you about the places. Hazards and diseases are out unless they are particularly regular for the area(like tremors or earthquakes on a fault line). Letting people know what animals live in the area is also fine. For less mundane creatures let them know there have been rumors of strange things. Keep that part vague if you want.
The Queen missing wouldn't be a Knowledge check. That sounds like it would be a very well kept secret. However you could say no one has seen the Queen in a while when they gather information(yes, it's a Diplomacy check now). Rumors would abound, naturally.
If you're walking through the woods with the world's greatest botanist, they're not going to be acutely aware of every single tree, weed, flower, or blade of grass around them. If they focus on one particular thing, they likely know all about it but one's focus has a fairly narrow band.
So think of high knowledge skills as "having google in your head"- you have to know what to ask about; you don't just get the information because you happen to see/smell/hear a thing. So get your players to invite knowledge checks by asking about things. After all, every time the world class botanist walks past a tree/flower/etc. you can reasonably infer they simply weren't particularly interested in that one.
Personally, I run checks to identify monsters with "a successful check gets you some background lore, and you get to ask one specific question about that monster plus one for every 5 by which you exceed the DC". These can be things like "what is its weakest defense" or "what is its most dangerous attack".
I find it's generally better when you get players to engage with the world by expecting them to ask questions.
Regarding the queen being missing, I figure that you want this to be a plot hook so you want the players to succeed on these checks, so I would let a player roll whichever skill they want provided they can explain how that skill applies. If the Queen has been missing for a day, there probably isn't really a paper trail so you're going to have to ask around, but if there is a paper trail someone can follow it with an appropriate Knowledge skill.
"What would you like to know?" is always a good question -- the player may have something in mind very different than what you thought he meant.
Sometimes one has to wing it. "Yes, there are flesh-eating plants, but you know their usual habitats and how they look so you can avoid them with a Survival roll if you want to." The general rule of thumb here is to say "yes, and..." -- if the player wants to do something or find something. Yes, whatever they want can happen, _but_ there are complications _or_ something else happens _or_ they have to make a skill check.
(In open-ended exploration stuff, I like to have a number of random encounters prepared ahead of time so I have something to do if the players go somewhere else than where I expected.)
I feel like "Avoiding the flesh-eating plants" question is generally resolved by "there is a road through the forest that leads to your destination, are you going to take the road or do you want to try to beat a path through the undergrowth instead?" That way if there are flesh eating plants or bandits or whatever that just happen to be waiting by the road (because that's where most of their prey is going to be) you're not likely to avoid them unless you spot them in advance (which is a perception thing not a knowledge thing.)
I mean, the world's greatest marine biologist might not be able to avoid sharks being nearby if it just so happens that her destination is an area where sharks tend to congregate. She just happens to know that in advance so she can take precautions.
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"I rolled a 36 on knowledge nature. Are there any hazards in this forest?"
This interaction explains a bit of your dilemma. It describes a player in control (rolling dice and asking you), and you playing defense (trying to answer on their terms).
Maybe instead, preface the description of the forest they're visiting by saying something like, "Because of your superior knowledge of the area, you know that..." and describe a few rumors.
If the player wants to investigate one of those rumors, they can further their knowledge.
Yah. Definitely feed them basic information that they ought to already know about the forest -- for instance, if they rolled a "5", what would they get? Just tell them that -- their character knows it!
You can always create a crusty old ranger guide (or equivalent for other areas, e.g. a clever street urchin, a devout monk, a lady in white) to give them more knowledge if they need it, or go seeking for it.
For a 36 on a forest -- I'd give them some decent results (e.g., if I have an ambush planned, the character will know enough to give him a heads-up on that particular encounter, if he applies it.) Let characters with high knowledge rolls shine -- it's your way to lead the players to where they want to go. If they piece things together -- let them. It's usually fun for the GM to share backstory, and what other chances do you have for that?
I also feel like, if you're willing to run a game this sort of the way, a high knowledge roll is a good opportunity to let a player take partial ownership of the world. If they're up for it, let the player who rolled a 36 on knowledge nature tell you about what this forest is like, and if you think they missed something just amend what they're saying after they're done.
Once your players are used to spitting out things like "This is a deciduous temperate forest, through which a major road runs that features meaningful merchant traffic. Since caravans and similar are generally well guarded, this tends to keep all but the most desperate or intelligent predators off the road. There are a variety of helpful herbs that grow in the woods, as well as a rare mushroom that's prized by gourmets for it's complex earthy flavor" your job as the GM gets a lot easier.
a bit more into the forest knowledge.
remmber that the information the characters havevia knowledge skills, if not gained by themsleves, is gained throguh others (by books, teachers, rumors etc) that mean they can only know what should be known. if a hag moved into the woods recently and no1 ever laerned of it. they shouldn't automaticly learn this even if they rolled a 100. BUT i would allow hints for stuff that arn't normal. in the hag case you can say " your studies teach you enough to know that there should be a lot more animals about then what you encounter" and let them figure out why is that not so.
remmber also that even if the book says that vampires are evil. this band of roaming vampire bards might have reforemd...
(had a band such as this in my game, called "children of the night" all out of the cofin vampires, got their meals from vulentiring fans. no complosion used)
I'll try my best to answer your questions and give my personal hints.
When they roll high on a knowledge check when encountering a monster, should I just give them the bestiary?
Never, it hurts the game immersion, a lot. One of the biggest problems of GMs/veteran players is the Metagaming (the player knows what the character still doesn't).
In monster lore, a successful check and every 5 points exceeded gives 'a bit of useful information'. That general open wording was intentional so that you can use your own criteria when giving information about that said monster. Personally I'd recomend avoiding giving numbers.
I'll take the zombie as an example. I find adequate making the Zombie a common monster, so the base DC is 5+CR instead of 10+CR.
It has the always staggered condition, DR 5/Slashing and the Undead Traits.
Let's assume that the roll was 'high' enough to give 2 bits of information. What those 2 should be? Anyone is fine, but personally I always start with the Universal Traits (seems fair to me giving the whole pack of inmunities).
The second one, DR 5/Slashing. Entirelly up to you how to say it. From "only sharp blades will fully damage the creature" to "the fella has DR 5/Slashing".
What about the always Staggered condition? It can become obvius after the first round of the zombie. He can only attack or move in it's turn.
When they roll knowledge checks on a large forest they have to go through. Do I tell them every creature, disease, food and hazards they could encounter?
Unless you want to become a living Silmarillion, no. At least not everything specifically. A generic answer for generic questions seems a fair trade to me. As others pointed not every single living creature in the forest has been spotted by somebody. What's the thrill if everything have been already discovered?
The most common creatures, the lair of a well known one (i.e: a dragon), you can say "there is a risk of catching a disease that can even kill you, beware where you dive", dangers of mud traps or venomous snakes (traps with its own CR), how hard will it be to find food and/or clean water (increased DC on survival checks), fairies that will steal your stuff just for fun, etc etc...
Well, in my campaign that queen has been missing, for a day. So for them to figure this out, they have to "gather information." Which is in the diplomacy skill now?
What if the queen has been missing for a week? Or a month? When does it stop from being a gather information check, to being a knowledge check?
Is the fact still a secret inside the castle and only a gossip? Gather information.
Did the king made an announcement saying that the queen is missing and there's a reward for finding her alive? Knowledge.
You are the GM, you control the world, you can decide who, where, and when.
Remember those are just my thoughts, but I hope that they could help you to find your... 'GM way'?
Anyway, best of luck to you!