Hi Allen and all:
>Something I read somewhere, long long ago:
>
>Bees tend to build their hive to correspond to the angle of
>inclination of the lines of magnetic force -- more vertical nearer
>the poles, and horizontal at the equator.  Hence the Kenyan hive is
>an equatorial hive design and may not be suited to the extremes of
>north or south.
>
>True?  Not true, Who knows?  Discuss?
 
What a researcher (can't find his article, but it's here and I can dig it up
if desired) found was that swarms would start comb building using the same
orientation as in the parent colony.  (He tested it with good experimental
procedure IMHO.) It makes sense, since organizing a colony to all start a
job like that is quite a feat when there are no top bars.  The article did
not suggest to my recollection any orientation preference; only that the
lines of force could be sensed.  The research work was done in Brazil, but
bees use magnetoreception at all latitudes and must normally compensate for
the various inclinations of the field.  Incidentally, the simplest organism
that I know of using magnetoreception is a mud burrowing bacteria in the
tropics.  It uses the inclination of the magnetic field to orient up and
down.  It is so small that the tiny magnetic crystals in its body can
actually move it.  Noone knows yet how bees and other magnetoreceptive
animals sense the orientation of their EXTREMELY tiny magnets.
 
Have a nice day      Stan
P.S.  Allen, if you want an idea discussed on the list you should remember
that you have set your mailer reply default to yourself, and might change it
back.  I only caught it by accident before I sent the mail.