In a message dated 96-07-25 01:04:08 EDT, [log in to unmask] (Ian Watson) writes: << So..i tried putting a box of dark comb ontop...plus a box of foundation...but nothing has happened... The queen refuses to come up into my equipment and lay.... How do i get her ..and the colony..up into my sturdy equipment to i can move them to my apiary. I think it would be a shame to not take advantage of this queens obvious characteristics.. >> Get yourself a rubber mallet. Smoke the entrance heavily, then begin a regular thumping on the lower box. The bees will all run upward into the new box. Keep smoking and drumming steadily with the mallet, until the upper box is full of bees; likely they will begin spilling over the edges. Put an excluder under the new top box. Wait a couple days, and check the frames in the top box for eggs. If you have eggs, the queen is in that box. Let her be, until all brood has emerged from the lower box. Then it can be removed and cleaned up, or disgarded. If the queen has not moved up, try it again. It is not difficult, and drumming does not seem to make the bees aggressive. In fact it calms them. I do not like to drum bees unless there is a good reason. I'm sure there is a lot of stress for them, because they abandon the brood; something they would hardly ever do otherwise. But it works. [log in to unmask] Dave Green, PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC 29554 Practical Pollination Home Page Dave & Janice Green http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html