> Didn't Dr. Seeley's work find the opposite of #1, while confirming #2?

this is from 1976:

We inspected 49 entrances in 33 nests. Knotholes (56 %), tree cracks (32 %) and holes among roots (12 %) formed entrances. Most nests (79 %) had one entrance. The others (21%) had up to 5 entrance holes.  Most nests (70 %) had entrances smaller than 40 cm2. The modal entrance area was 10 to 20 cm2. Most entrances were at or near ground level.  The predominance of ground level nests probably reflects a predominance of tree cavities at the bases of trees.   

Nest entrances tended to be near the nest bottom. By classifying nest entrances as opening into the bottom, middle or top third of the nest cavity, we obtained the following distribution: bottom, 58 %; middle, 18 %; top, 24 % (29 entrances from 20 nests). This predominance of bottom entrances is highly improbable (P <0.002) assuming entrance position relative to the cavity is random. 

This nonrandom distribution can be explained in two ways. Either honey bees select cavities with bottom entrances, or fungal decay, which probably produces most tree cavities, tends to expand upward from its entry point into a tree. A bottom entrance is probably advantageous. Convectional heat loss is smaller for nests with the entrance at the bottom than at the top ... 

THE NEST OF THE HONEY BEE (APIS MELLIFERA L.) By T. D. SEELEY and R. A. MORSE
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, U.S.A.,
and Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, Nero York 14853, U.S.A.
lnsectes Sociaux, Paris. 1976. Tome 23, no. 4, pp. 495-512.

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