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
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