>>How do you determine the "worst" position.  Is this trial & error or can you list characteristics?

It's trial and error to some extent but you can get a few cues by scanning the area with some care.  Bees develep flight pathways that are optimum to them.  A bush, a tree, or a structure forces them to augment those pathways.  If funneled by the landscape, a prevailing sideways breeze can carry the dominant queen scent away in one direction potentially skewing the pathways and drifting.

My hives, out of necessity, are in fairly straight lines with slight stagerring in the front-to-back direction.  My worst spot is almost invariably in the middle of the row.

For transposing and equalizing in the late spring, I place my superstar hive in that location.  This gives the less-than-superstar hives more bees to raise extra brood and be very strong for the summer.

My fundamental goal is to maximize the amount of brood from each queen.  Drifting or not, the maximized bee population will best take care of the honey crop.

>>If you know the worst, how about your views on the best position.

Unless there is a really failing queen or an obstacle like a bush in front of the hive, the row ends will always have the largest numbers of bees in my experience.

Waldemar

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