>A failure to provide an upper entrance for ventilation is a recipe for
>disaster...sooner or later.  (There must be a reason why feral colonies
>almost always have their brood nest and honey storage area BELOW the
>entrance.)

I agree with the need for an upper entrance for ventilation/cleansing flights but have a question about the sentence in parenthesis above: is this a matter of bees' preference or the geometry of some feral housings?  I have seen feral colonies build down from the entrance if the entrance was at the 'ceiling' of the chamber.  When hiving packages/swarms, they always start at the top.

The reason I ask is because I have seen ads in bee magazines for a hive without the bottom entrance.  The entrance was in the middle of the hive stack.  Has anyone tried this approach?

Thanks,

Waldemar
Long Island, NY

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