Peter Borst writes:

<<As far as queens appearing in laying worker hives, this is so rare
that no one has ever seen it except you and Otto Mackensen (excepting
Cape Bees, of course). To invoke laying workers as a *significant
pathway* of heredity is incorrect. You are resorting to a very
complicated explanation to back up your theory.>>

    This isn't quite correct; thelytoky in honey bees was first reported by
John Hewitt in 1892, and a queen raised from a laying worker's egg,
presumably one of Hewitt's, was presented to the British Museum in that year.
TH Morgan has also described it. The phenomenon undoubtedly occurs at a low
level in European bees, and is doubtless discouraged by normal beekeeper
practices. It has been shown by Mackensen to occur in Italian bees, however,
and if it occurred in a hive, would the beekeeper work out what had happened
- or would they assume that another explanation had to be the true one? I'm
not suggesting that it happens more than very occasionally, but I think the
reality is that we just don't know.

Regards,

Robert Brenchley

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Birmingham, UK.