Randy presented reports by Winston showing much more eggs emerging in 
queen cells in african hives, when there was no access by queen. This 
sounds very much like workers making viable eggs.

Agree, citing:

Workers of the South African honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis (Capensis) produce fatherless female offspring via thelytokous parthenogenesis, whereas queens produce female eggs sexually.

Worker reproduction occurs at a much higher frequency in Capensis colonies than in arrhenotokous honey bee subspecies, so much so that workers contribute significantly to the production of new queens Queen-laid and worker-laid eggs are indistinguishable in size and surface ultrastructure. 

Further, at a population level, approximately half of Capensis queens are the products of thelytokous worker reproduction.   

Reid, R. J., Remnant, E. J., Allsopp, M. H., Beekman, M., & Oldroyd, B. P. (2017) Paternal effects on Apis mellifera capensis worker ovary size. Apidologie, 1-6. First Online: 08 May 2017

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html