Milt Lathan wrote:

 Do honeybees in the wild naturally orient their
 comb facing the opening or perpendicular to the opening?  Or do they
care at all?

Hello All,
In the wild up to approx 14 half oval combs are built and bees seem to
enter from the bottom. In  hollow trees the bees seem to orient thier
combs facing the opening with the first few combs containing honey. In
round swarm traps many are perpendicular to the opening.
I read a experiment years ago asking the question you ask and the answer
was in percents of ways they build comb. I believe from memory *comb
facing the opening* had the largest percent. Hope i have helped.
Bob