Hello everybody; Thank you all for your input re: brood boxes. It has been very interesting reading the comments and the different ideas and reasons for doing what you do. As David Eyre says, Horses for Courses. I have another question, to satisy my insatiable curiosity. I posed several questions to the archives but could not phrase the question to elicit an answer... With whom does the queen mate? OK, I know she mates with a drone, but is it a drone from her own hive? When she takes her mating flight does she travel with her own drones or does she troll for a drone from another hive? The literature I have found says simply, "she mates with a drone..." Thanks for your consideration. Bob Farrington Bequia, West Indies [log in to unmask]