Well, some time back, there was talk of finding queens by taking a brood frame for one hive and placing it in another. The theory was that the queen would smell the other queen and run to that frame, to be found there when it was next removed minutes later. We decided to test that hypothesis after splitting 22 hives by removing the lower brood chamber (BC) and setting it aside on a floor plus an emptylower BC at the end of the main flow. The hives' entrances were reduced, and the hives left several days. On returning, one centre brood frame was pulled from each hive and transferred to the gap in the centre of the BC in the previous hive. In the process, 2 queens were spotted just in passing, and those hives were removed from the test. Of the remaining 20 splits, half had queens, as it ultimately turned out; half didn't. However _in no case_ was the queen found on the newly introduced frame, after 5 minutes, after 10 minutes, or even after 20 minutes . Each queeen's presence or absence had to be detected by checking for eggs. (We had marked the hive/split pairs, so only the splits had to be checked. The principal object was to requeen each hive or corresponding split) by finding which had the queen. So, we were unable to make this idea work for us. Has anyone actually had it work? Regards Allen W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper VE6CFK RR#1, Swalwell, Alberta Canada T0M 1Y0 Internet:[log in to unmask] & [log in to unmask] Honey. Bees, & Art <http://www.internode.net/~allend/>