Where do bees naturally live?
What is a naturally good size for a bee colony?
It is NOT in squared boxes with honey supers on top ;-)
Bees used to live in hollow trees. More and more people are trying to make the bees healthy again. One of the options is to arrange multiple small living areas, in trees, with small brood nests, own honey stores.
We call it Tree BeeKeeping.
I tried to builda bee log hivemyself. It is rather hard work.
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It starts with a tree log and a lot of carving...
Giving some nice wood shavings a fire starter
And the result
You are correct that bees do much better in a tree than conventional bee hives, but not because of the shape, but the insulation value. You have made your cavity much too big for the bees to get full benefit. The tree walls should be 4-6" think. Check out Derel Mitchell's research on the subject which also discusses Tom Seeley's findings on natural tree cavity size.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=forums&srcid=MTQ1OTYwMzIwNzQ2NzIzNDE4MDcBMDc3NDA4MjkyOTA0MTMzNTYzMDUBUjE0WWxzVU9BZ0FKATAuMS4xAQF2Mg&authuser=0
Thanks. I know about the Seeley info. Derel Mitchell is new to me, will read your link!