[Heather]

I would change the attributes to a Calendar type .
the mapping would be something like that:

Code:

<property name="date" type="calendar" column="finishdate"/>

Code:

Query query = getSession().createQuery(select .... where (req.date between :date1 and :date2)
.setCalendar("date1 ",this.getYear()[0])
.setCalendar("date2",this.getYear()[1]);