Hi all, In a conversation last night with some beekeeping friends, we were talking about this year's swarming (_Heavy_ -- Some of my colonies with new queens just eight weeks old are preparing again to swarm!). We got on to how we should decrease the number of stocks after our artificial swarms, swarm capturing and so on. Everyone admitted some difficulty with this, particularly in high season -- all the books tell you how to make increase but none seem to give much advice about restoring the status quo. There are lots of people out there who must have dealt with this to a greater or lesser extent already. What are your preferred methods please? I reckon our little group here are about to start experimenting with uniting large colonies in mid season. For the record, I personally expect to use the newspaper method to do the uniting with the queen in the lower brood box below a QX (maybe I need a drone exit?), give the brood time to hatch and then move the upper box above the cover board where I hope it will be cleaned of stores. My guess is that this will stay as a thread on the newsgroup/list as it may be of wide interest. However, if you think I'm wrong please say so on the list and ask people to mail me directly. I will then summarise and post a result. I'm away for a couple of days now so I can't answer directly for a while. Thanks in advance, -- Gordon Scott [log in to unmask] 100332,3310 on CompuServe Newsletter [log in to unmask] ditto Beekeeper, Kendo Sandan, sometime sailor. Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG22 5HP, UK