Funny thing is, I read this *after* I decided to try it. I have a breeder queen which I want to keep and her colony has been dwindling pretty steadily since fall. I had them over another colony, separated by the inner cover with the hole screened over. I finally decided to put a queen excl on the lower hive, and put the inner cover back on without the screen. I caged the queen, and plan to let her out if they seem to be getting along. I really don't want to lose this queen, but nor do I want to stick her into a full sized colony. PLB *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm