> In a natural cavity, with the bees always up against the honey, with drawn comb below, it's more difficult for them to build up, or store honey

This presumes that all natural hives are in trees, which they are not. Many bees live in caves and I have seen them work horizontal in houses, occupying the space between floors.  In many parts of the world hives are horizontal, which may follow this logic, that bees work just as well horizontally as vertically. In the Arabic world, hives are opened from the back. Of course, swarming is not discouraged by these methods, beekeepers in that tradition want swarms.

> The beekeeper who is interested in helping the bees to be more productive, will intentionally create an "unnatural" arrangement of the combs, placing drawn comb above the cluster

Exactly. This was pioneered by Root in the 1870s, and took a long time to catch on, because beekeepers were trying to produce comb honey in boxes, which is just the opposite of giving tons of drawn combs.

P

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