Removing a CMP Entity Bean from Memory

[Danny]

Is there a way to programmatically tell the container to remove a CMP entity bean from memory without removing it�s persistent data?  I did many searches on the web relating to this question but the answer still eludes me.  As a test example, I call a CMP entity bean finder method twice with the same parameters each time.  The finder method returns a collection of 2 entity beans for each call.  When I monitor the containers CMP entity beans after the first call, there are 2 active entity beans.  When I monitor the containers CMP entity beans after the second call, there are 4 active entity beans.  It seems like there should only be 2 active entity beans since the second call to the finder method is returning the same 2 entity beans as the first call.  If the container is going to produce new active entity beans every time a CMP entity bean finder method is called, then I would like to be able to programmatically remove the active entity beans from memory.   Danny