>  > 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).
>
>Gloria Degrandi-Hofman has reported observing just that, unless I am
>mistaken, and did not Erickson do some work with Dee on this some time back?

It would still be extremely rare and can not be invoked as the
mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for larger bees over
the past 100 years. Not even among the Cape Bees does this manner of
reproduction occur except under the unusual circumstance of a hive
losing its queen and then losing the emergency queen.

In a study of about 100 Cape Colonies that were made queenless, 60%
raised new queens the normal way. Only 20% successfully requeened
from laying worker brood.

Mackensen's work, which hasn't been replicated (that I know of),
showed what would happen if a hive was forced to raise a queen from
unfertilized queen eggs, a circumstance which almost never occurs. Of
these, only a small percentage succeeded. (Hepburn, 1998)

--
Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>