When I first read this article on comb positioning, I had a very difficult time understanding it.  Part
of the reason may be that the characters did not "translate" correctly in the message I received
so I wasn't sure what the characters and punctuation were supposed to be.

On the second reading (next day) I thought I was beginning to understand what it was saying, but I
still wasn't sure.  I then went the Bee Source web site:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/housel.htm

and found the same article, and as it has included illustrations, I was finally able to get a clearer
understanding of exactly what was being said.

I have seen a number of the symptoms described and suggested in this article to have been
caused by improper comb positioning.  At the time, I did not know what might have caused them.  I
used to wonder whether or not the orientation of the combs or foundation in the hive mattered or
not.  In other words, is there an "up" or "down" orientation.  What will happen if I get them in there
"upside-down"?  This also suggests that if I take a comb out to look at it, and accidentally put it
back in backwards (with the ends reversed from how it was before I took it out) that I could be
causing problems.  At least I know that the bees probably have set up the brood and the pollen
and honey stores in such a way as to be most efficient, and by reversing them, I may make it
more difficult for them to most efficiently take care of the brood.

The next question that comes to mind is "Do the manufacturers of foundation and plastic frame/
foundation combinations with pre-embossed patterns make them oriented correctly?"

Another one is, "What happens if the Y's (bases of the cells) are running diagonally?"

I have not yet tried to make observations to verify that what is being explained is accurate, but it is
now something I plan to take into account and check to see if what I am observing is in any way
due to the orientation of the bases of the cells.  I used to wonder if it mattered, but did not know
what the orientation should be, even if it did matter, so I did not pay any attention to it.  I just put
the foundation in the frames an stuck them in the hive.  Now I am interested to see if my own
observations will verify what has been argued.

Some of my hives are regular Langstroth and others are top bar hives where I use a plain
unembossed wax starter strip and let the bees put their own pattern in  it however they want to
orient it.  So far, I personally have not found that the bees in my top bar hives survive any better
than the ones in the Langstroth equipment.  Colonies with younger queens or those establised
from swarms or those with hygienic queens seem to survive longer regardless of what kind of
equipment they are housed in.  I do not do any "migratory" beekeeping, but most of my hives
remain where I originally place them (unless they start causing problems, and then I have to
move them).  It could be that some of them just "escape" Varroa infestation because of isolation
from infested hives.  I also believe that there are a number of other factors besides Varroa that
can cause a hive to go queenless or dwindle.  I think Varroa gets blamed for a lot of things that
have other causes.  It is just the latest and biggest problem, so gets the blame for just about
everything.  I used to monitor it more, but it seems to be less of a problem around here, so I
don't much any more.  Besides that, I'm trying to cut back on the number of hives I have, so
I'm letting them go by natural attrition so I don't have so much work to do.  They're not dying
fast enough, though--too healthy.  I can afford to make mistakes and have losses since I don't
keep bees for a living.  I wouldn't want to ruin a good hobby by having to do it for a living.  One
of my friends in the Extension Service where I used to work once said, "Working for Extension
Entomology sure ruined a good hobby."

Layne Westover, College Station, Texas