Robert Benchley wrote:

>     I presume we're talking about queenright colonies. This would require
> laying workers alongside a queen. Has this ever been seen?

Robert Post responded:

We are not only talking queen right here, but also queen less. A.m. capensis
colonies often go into laying worker (producing worker brood) mode in the
absence
of a queen. If they do, then they are extremely difficult to requeen,
because the
laying workers act as psuedo-queens.

I'm not sure about direct observation. What has been noted is that colonies
have
contained brood way in excess of what a queen could possibly produce during
that
time. The only answer seems that laying workers work alongside their queen.

I would like to add:
In A.m. scutelata areas of South Africa where we have experienced invasion
of A.m. capensis, I have seen the pseudo-queen laying in the presence of a
queen, but the queen was no longer being attended to.  She just ran around
the comb as if she was lost.
In case its not known, the latest info. on the "Cape Bee invasion" is the
result of a single rouge cloning herself over and over again and not
hybridised. It would be interesting to find out; when the Cape beekeepers
experience this same problem if its the same A.m. capensis clone as that
which has been found in the north.

Eddy Lear