I had a colony that died out just before Christmas that, although queenright, had had no brood since before I first looked at it on 10th April when I thought it was queenless. I found the marked queen on a subsequent examination on 15th April. They rejected all attempts to requeen, including running in a virgin and there were no laying workers. So when they finally died some of the workers must have been at least 9 months old. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************