Well I'm always hesitant to write off the top of my head for fear of
getting it wrong, so I hit my books last night to see if what I wrote
was correct.  I was close, but no cigar (which in these days may not be
such a bad thing - you never know where those cigars have been!).
 
Anyway, I wrote:
"Eggs originate in the ovaries, a queen has many, some more than others."
which I knew at the time was not correct.  ALL queens have TWO ovaries -
the factory where eggs are produced.  Inside the ovaries are many ovarioles
which are the work stations inside the factory.  It is the ovarioles which
vary from queen to queen, ranging from "260 to 373 in one study on 280
queens (Eckert 1934)" (from _Queen_Rearing_and_Bee_Breeding_ Laidlaw and
Paige).  It is the ovarioles that:
> develop in the first few days of queen larval development.  This is a key
> reason why you want queens raised by populous hives with plenty of nurse
> bees ...   The better nourished queen larva will have more and better
> developed OVARIOLES than a lesser nourished larva.
More and better developed OVARIOLES improve a queen's ability to produce
more eggs in her lifetime.
 
> The egg from the ovary canal meets with the sperm from the spermatheca
> canal just before the queen places it at the bottom of the cell.
From Laidlaw and Paige: "As an egg moves down the median oviduct and into
the vagina it passes a point where the duct from the spermatheca opens
into the vagina.  An invagination of the ventral vaginal wall, the
valvefold, extends up to the spermatheca duct opening and causes the
micropyle at the large end of the egg to brush against the opening of
the duct as the egg moves into the vagina.  If the egg is to be
fertilized, it pauses momentarily as a number of sperm are released,
suspended in spermathecal fluid, from the spermatheca into the duct...
If the egg is not to be fertilized, the valvefold is probably lowered as
the egg passes through the vagina, and the egg is laid unfertilized."
 
Note that they write, "the valvefold is PROBABLY lowered".  Elsewhere,
Laidlaw and Paige write "A well mated queen queen may lay drone or worker
eggs 'at will', for several years, depositing them in the proper cells."
(The quotes around "'at will'" are theirs, not mine).  The "probably
lowered" and "'at will'" lead me to believe that L&P did not take a firm
stand to debunk the speculation that
> there is some sort of mechanism that is pressed by the tighter worker
> cell that triggers the release of sperm which does not get pressed when
> the queen lays in a larger drone cell.
 
The "speculation" was presented at Sue Cobey's queen breeding class which
I took two years ago, L&P take a fuzzy stand that the queen has control.
 
Stefan Stangaciu <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> ... But her inspection has TWO facets.  She checks for eggs, but she
> also checks the size of the cell with her mandibles.  What would the
> purpose of this inspection be if she did not have control over
> fertilization?"
 
Dunno - perhaps the measuring has something to do with it.  L&P include
in their book a picture of a frame of drone brood containing worker
pupae: "Eggs were laid by a mated queen that was confined to one drone
comb."  This suggests to me that to fertilize or not is under the
queen's control and not due to the mechanics of cell size, but the
experts don't agree or are not sure and I'm not gonna lose sleep over it.
 
I also spent some time last night rereading sections of Steve Taber's
_Breeding_Super_Bees_ for some of these answers.  Taber's book offers
interesting insights into the quantity of sprem passed from drone(s) to
queens, potential for the amount of sperm a queen is capable to store
and ACTUAL amounts finally stored by a properly mated queen.  He states
that a properly mated queen will store more sperm in her spermatheca if
the queen is promptly returned to a hive environment.  It is unclear
why this is so, possible reasons include exercise by the queen and a
possibility that workers may play a role.  I mention the possible role
of workers here as perhaps a grain of truth to the rumor picked up by
Madeleine's father which started this whole thread in the first place.
 
Both books mentioned in this post are highly recommended.  Sue Cobey's
class (Queen Rearing) is offered annually at Ohio State University on or
around Memorial Day weekend and is deserving of the highest praises one
can give.
 
Stan closed "thinking...  if I love to watch queens fertilizing
their eggs does that make me a voyeur?".  I don't want to get into that
one, could be grounds for impeachment!
 
Aaron Morris - thinking I'd rather be at ABF in Tennessee!
               Regards to my lucky buddies who made it there