Within the context of your UserTransaction (if your persistence unit has Tx type JTA) or Hibernate Session (if you're managing this manually), I'd execute an EJBQL "COUNT" Function to get a slim-and-trim resultant SQL Query sent to your DB. Integer objId = [whatever your PK is]; | EntityManager em = [wherever you get your EM from]; | Integer count = (Integer)(em.createQuery("SELECT COUNT(obj.association) FROM " + YourEntityBean.class.getName() | + " obj WHERE obj.id = :objId").setParameter("objId",objId).getSingleResult()); You don't really want to be "loading" anything if you don't need these objects....just the count. S, ALR View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4085051#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...