I do not know whether bees in the Northern Hemisphere have a directional preference for their combs, 
but there is a wonderful paper on comb orientation in swarms by a fellow named DeJong.  The 
experiment was done in Brazil I believe, which would make it close to the equator.  Apparently there 
the comb orientation in swarms will usually be the same as that of the parent hive (if there are no
starter strips or other physical constraints).  In the case of the experiment the swarm bait hives were 
round (the walls anyway, perhaps they were a cylinder on end:  I am obviously writing this from memory
and do not have the paper in front of me).   As far as the discussion in this thread about the direction
of the entrance I can be of no help as I do not recall how this was dealt with in the experiment.

The fascinating thing about the experiment was that usually the swarms oriented closely with the
comb direction of the parent hive.  However, if an artifical magnetic field was created  around the
swarm box which was perpendicular to the earths magnetic field, then the swarm's combs would also be 
perpendicular to the parent colonies combs.

Regards
Stan

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