Laying workers arise as the result of the loss of a queen in a colony with no suitable eggs to be made into a supercedure queen. It is suspected that queen pheremone supresses egg-laying behaviour in the workers and the loss of the queen removes this supression. The signs are: a) no queen b) general queenless behaviour c) often, a small colony size d) THE POSITION OF WORKER-LAID EGGS. These are about 1/2 way down the sidewall of the cell, not at the apex, as the worker can't reach the bottom. The eggs will be drones. Treatment: Re-queening is not too reliable, as the colony is in a mode where it is creating its own queen. One solution is to introduce a 'scratch' (low-cost, non valuable) queen or capped queen cell to give the colony a queen on a temporary basis and once she is established, re-queen properly using your lucky method. Otherwise, you can try and unite the affected colony with one that is queen-right, to save the workers for use. Chris Deaves Twickenham & Thames Valley BKA.