A speaker at our bee club a few years back claimed that natural tree cavities:

1.  generally had their entrances at the top, not at the bottom.
2.  generally had entrances substantially smaller than the cross-sectional area of the standard Langstroth bottom entrance.
3.  had different moisture-related properties because the wood of a standing tree was "live".

I do not know of any statistical studies validating that speaker's opinions but my limited personal experience does tend to support claim 1 about top entrances (though at least one active bee cavity I saw had multiple entrances).  If true, top rather than bottom entrances certainly would result in very different moisture and CO2 transport patterns than what we see in standard hives.

Claim 2 also matches my limited personal experience.  The natural entrances I've seen have been in the 1 sq inch range (5-10 cm^2).  The standard unreduced Langstroth bottom entrance is 5.5 sq in (~35 cm^2).  Again if true, this should result in very different ventilation patterns.

I can't comment on the speaker's claim 3 because he never properly explained whether he meant that he thought the heartwood retained some capillary function not found in cut wood or whether he meant that the cavity approached the interior boundary of the sapwood and would exploit the moisture-transport functions of that layer.

Finally, we should note that the pattern of comb in a natural hive tends to be a lot more chaotic than the straight lines of a managed hive.  I cannot help but think that also would affect ventilation.

Don't know what any of it means or how it might apply but it was interesting to think about.

Mike Rossander (in NE Ohio)



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