diff --git a/src/nested_pandas/nestedframe/core.py b/src/nested_pandas/nestedframe/core.py
index 2e9e552..4970930 100644
--- a/src/nested_pandas/nestedframe/core.py
+++ b/src/nested_pandas/nestedframe/core.py
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ def _split_query(self, expr) -> dict:
         """Splits a pandas query into multiple subqueries for nested and base layers"""
         # Ensure query has needed spacing for upcoming split
         expr = _ensure_spacing(expr)
-        nest_exprs = {col: [] for col in self.nested_cols + ["base"]}  # type: dict
+        nest_exprs = {col: [] for col in self.nested_columns + ["base"]}  # type: dict
         split_expr = expr.split(" ")
 
         i = 0
@@ -93,7 +93,48 @@ def _split_query(self, expr) -> dict:
         return {expr: " ".join(nest_exprs[expr]) for expr in nest_exprs if len(nest_exprs[expr]) > 0}
 
     def query(self, expr) -> Self:  # type: ignore[name-defined] # noqa: F821
-        """overwrite query to first check which columns should be queried"""
+        """
+        Query the columns of a NestedFrame with a boolean expression. Specified
+        queries can target nested columns in addition to the typical column set
+
+        Parameters
+        ----------
+        expr : str
+            The query string to evaluate.
+
+            Access nested columns using `nested_df.nested_col` (where
+            `nested_df` refers to a particular nested dataframe and
+            `nested_col` is a column of that nested dataframe).
+
+            You can refer to variables
+            in the environment by prefixing them with an '@' character like
+            ``@a + b``.
+
+            You can refer to column names that are not valid Python variable names
+            by surrounding them in backticks. Thus, column names containing spaces
+            or punctuations (besides underscores) or starting with digits must be
+            surrounded by backticks. (For example, a column named "Area (cm^2)" would
+            be referenced as ```Area (cm^2)```). Column names which are Python keywords
+            (like "list", "for", "import", etc) cannot be used.
+
+            For example, if one of your columns is called ``a a`` and you want
+            to sum it with ``b``, your query should be ```a a` + b``.
+
+        Returns
+        -------
+        DataFrame
+            DataFrame resulting from the provided query expression.
+
+        Notes
+        -----
+        Queries that target a particular nested structure return a dataframe
+        with rows of that particular nested structure filtered. For example,
+        querying the NestedFrame "df" with nested structure "my_nested" as
+        below will return all rows of df, but with mynested filtered by the
+        condition:
+
+        >>> df.query("mynested.a > 2")
+        """
 
         # Rebuild queries for each specified nested/base layer
         exprs_to_use = self._split_query(expr)
@@ -111,5 +152,5 @@ def query(self, expr) -> Self:  # type: ignore[name-defined] # noqa: F821
                 result = super().query(exprs_to_use["base"], inplace=False)
             else:
                 # TODO: does not work with queries that empty the dataframe
-                result[expr] = result[expr].ts.query_flat(exprs_to_use[expr])
+                result[expr] = result[expr].nest.query_flat(exprs_to_use[expr])
         return result
diff --git a/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_nestedframe.py b/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_nestedframe.py
index 8c70da3..802db81 100644
--- a/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_nestedframe.py
+++ b/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_nestedframe.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import pandas as pd
+import pytest
 from nested_pandas import NestedFrame
 
 
@@ -74,3 +75,29 @@ def test_add_nested():
 
     assert "nested" in base.columns
     assert base.nested.nest.to_flat().equals(nested)
+
+
+def test_query():
+    """Test that NestedFrame.query handles nested queries correctly"""
+
+    base = NestedFrame(data={"a": [1, 2, 3], "b": [2, 4, 6]}, index=[0, 1, 2])
+
+    nested = pd.DataFrame(
+        data={"c": [0, 2, 4, 1, 4, 3, 1, 4, 1], "d": [5, 4, 7, 5, 3, 1, 9, 3, 4]},
+        index=[0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2],
+    )
+
+    # Test vanilla queries
+    base = base.add_nested(nested, "nested")
+    assert len(base.query("a > 2")) == 1
+
+    # Check for the multi-layer error
+    with pytest.raises(ValueError):
+        base.query("a > 2 & nested.c > 1")
+
+    # Test nested queries
+    nest_queried = base.query("nested.c > 1")
+    assert len(nest_queried.nested.nest.to_flat()) == 5
+
+    nest_queried = base.query("nested.c > 1 and nested.d>2")
+    assert len(nest_queried.nested.nest.to_flat()) == 4
diff --git a/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_utils.py b/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3908cb8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+import pytest
+from nested_pandas.nestedframe import utils
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "in_out",
+    [
+        ("a>3", "a > 3"),
+        ("test.a>5&b==2", "test.a > 5 & b == 2"),
+        ("b > 3", "b > 3"),
+        ("(a.b > 3)&(a.c == 'f')", "(a.b > 3) & (a.c == 'f')"),
+    ],
+)
+def test_ensure_spacing(in_out):
+    """test a set of input queries to make sure spacing is done correctly"""
+    expr, output = in_out
+    assert utils._ensure_spacing(expr) == output