Murray's experience below shares my own regarding bees moving up, rather than
down, from the entrance in a feral hive.  So much so that I count on this info
in estimating where to cut into the structure when removing feral hives.

Bees escape danger by traveling up.  Whenever I pull out a feral hive using a
BeeVac (see my post to Barry Birkey's site:
http://www.beesource.com/plans/beevac/index.htm ) bees will move up by groups
when there is no comb left to hide behind.

Perhaps bees prefer to move up from millions of years building homes in trees.
Would you prefer to live in the warm dry 'upstairs' or stay below and be
forever drowned and chilled by an exposed 'skylight'?   Andrew, maybe you've
had the luck to see bees making 'do' with feral structures when the only dry,
protective entrance could by had from above?  Of the hollowed trees I've seen,
decay seems to start from the knothole down giving bees a top entrance.

One hollow tree I pulled out last year had an entrance both below and above the
beehive.  The upper and lower entrances were over 6" across and both were found
to be covered by a thin wax and propolis wall.   The upper entrance was
sculpted so rain wouldn't fall into their hive.   The colors of the wax and
propolis were 'disguised' such that you couldn't tell where the wood stopped
and the wax began.

Bees can be quite little engineers when nature doesn't build to their needs.

Matthew Westall - Earthling Bees - Castle Rock, CO, USA


>  Andrew Dubas
> <[log in to unmask]> writes
> > can anyone find a beehive in the wild that their
> >entrance is below the comb ? It is usually 99.9% above the nest. So why do
> >we use commercial bottom boards ?
>
> This assertion does not equate at all with our experience. In my (even?)
> more foolish days I was frequently called on to deal with feral colonies