>> If a queen does not "produce workers", what do we call it?
>> I would call it a "drone layer", as it is not "producing workers".
>> Is there some other term you'd like?

> Non laying queen.  Because it is not producing workers does not mean it is
> producing drones.  A drone layer, or part drone layer produces drones
> because it was not mated properly or has run out of sperm.
  
>> If so, wouldn't the difference be, at most, purely semantics?

> Not in this case, where the point is that they produced no offspring
> (apparently)

What possible scenario would result in a queen laying no eggs at all?

When a queen is raised that does not mate, a common problem here in the
City, the queen lays eggs, and you can watch her do so.  Even workers will
lay eggs in the absence of a queen, of course, so I would be surprised to
see a queen that laid no eggs at all.

The most recent authoritative reference I have at hand is the 2013 edition
of "Bee Genetics and Breeding" edited by Thomas E. Rinderer, and all I can
find on the issue with full-text search (e-books rock!) is this:

"The active flight of the queen has little influence on the start of
oviposition. Queens which do not meet drones during their flights fly out
frequently. Vet, their ovaries remain undeveloped at least to the age of 23
days. When the active flight is omitted from the mating process by fixing
queens to a wire most of them start to lay eggs a few days later (G.
Koeniger, 1981)."  

I'm not going to look for Koeniger's paper, as most of his papers are in
German, and its Friday, so I'll be busy fulfilling "by the end of the week"
commitments right after this cup of coffee, so I don't have time to read and
translate it with my rusty and loose grasp of German.

My own notes are minimal - "Virgin queens also cannot be banked and saved
for later mating - an unmated queen will become a drone layer after about 20
days if not mated."  (This from an Ohio workshop I attended, so many moons
ago, the notes were taken on a Palm Pilot).

		

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