In a message dated 08/07/02 05:00:59 GMT Daylight Time, Peter Borst writes:
<< The proportion of workers with fully activated ovaries in normal
queenright colonies is extremely low, approximately 0.01%.
>>
So in a typical queenright colony at this time of year there may be as many
as half a dozen laying workers. I think it was Aebi who wrote (although I
don't know his source) that maybe 1% of laying workers can lay female eggs.
So maybe something in the region of one colony in 20 will have a laying
worker producing female eggs.
That is one of several (more likely) explanations for something I found this
year: a sealed queen cell several inches above a good queen excluder with no
other brood above the QE. The queen was in full lay below the QE.
Chris