I'd like to get this straight.  Do you mean laying workers or drone-laying
queens?  I had a late season virgin last year that failed to mate and became
a drone-layer in February.

It was a mess, and difficult to determine each case.   Most colonies clearly
had laying workers, judging by the piled up eggs in cells, but many also had
patterns that looked like they were layed by a queen, but developed into
drones--so I'd assume drone layer queens. A very few queens managed to mate,
but many later failed. We saw the full spectrum, and it took us months to
get everything straightened out!

An observation I've made again and again over the years is that laying
worker brood is extremely susceptible to chalkbrood infection.  Anyone else
notice this?

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