Sorry, Robin, but I implied workers from the queenright bottom half of the hive could migrate up through the queen excluder over the hole in the inner cover and pass the queen's pheromones on to the bees in the upper half. Since the pheromone levels in the upper half would be much reduced, supercedure cells could be started there. We were saying the same thing, I believe. Queens scent the comb with their foot glands and bees pick up the queen scent by coming in contact with her as well. Having an excluder over the inner cover is important to me. I once placed irregular brood combs from a feral colony in a hive body over the inner cover on a regular colony and later found that the queen had gone up through the inner cover hole and laid up a big batch of eggs in the feral comb! This only prolonged how long I had to keep the feral comb on the hive. In the induced supercedure scenario, if the queen went up, it would most likely stop any queen cell building activity in the upper section. Waldemar Long Island, NY >From Robin: Waldemar implies that queen pheromone is >airbourne. As I remember reading/believe, queen pheromone is >transmitted by contact - the queen leaves footprint pheromone >wherever she patrols and the bees take pheromone off her body >by licking (sounds delicious!). <...> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::