=A caveat to Kerry Clark's statement on laying workers (I hope he'll
=forgive me). Sometimes with strong young Queens in small colonies, like
=afterswarms/casts, the Queen gets ahead of the available empty cells
= she goes round again and you then get multiple eggs per cell.
=Note Kerry's qualifier of eggs laid _badly_ up the sides of the cells and
=so on -- workers don't easily reach the bottom of the cell.
 
Being a queen producer, I often see good queens laying two and even tree eggs
per cell in small mating nucs.  I also agree that eggs laid on the walls of the
cells are a a definite evidence of the presence of layin workers.  Layng workers
will also lay very large number of eggs per cell (ten and even more) wich a
queen will not do.  Almost 100% of the time laying workers will also have a very
poor laying pattern.
 
Concerning the presence of laying workers in queenright colonies, I think this
phenomenon varies according to the time of the year, at least in my area.  I
shake bees on a regular basis from queenright colonies to fill up swarm boxes
(sort of queenless and confined cell starter colonies) for grafting.  From time
to time the presence of eggs in queen cups from wich the larva was not accepted
tells me that a laying worker was shaken in the swarm box.  (I use a method that
eliminates the risk of taking the queen and also the succes rate of the graft
tells me that the swarm box was queenless).  Bu this is not frequent at all and
this never happened to me later than May.  I suspect that the proportion of
laying workers is higher in colonies in wich some old winter bees are still
present.
 
By the way "laying workers" are workers.  They are not "LAYING WORKER QUEENS"
Jane.
 
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Jean-Pierre Chapleau            phone: (819)828-3396
1282, rang 8,                   fax:   (819)828-2248
Saint-Adrien de Ham, QUEBEC
Canada, J0A 1C0                 [log in to unmask]
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