Somewhere a while back I remember reading somewhere about laying workers in
*queenright* colonies.  This topic has interested me once again, as I have
been seeing some substantial patches of drone brood here and there in some
honey supers as I have been harvesting honey.  Now granted, I'm not using
queen excluders, BUT these patches of drone brood are in supers near the
top of the stack, with full honey supers below them.  Which means her
highness would have to cross a great deal of honey to find the drone comb
to lay in.  I wonder if the workers are up to this mischief.
 
I recall seeing drone brood like this (always late summer/early fall) in
past seasons, when excluders were used, as well.  I would become alarmed
that the queen had been trapped *above* the excluder due to some mistake on
my part.  Yet, I would find her below with a normal happy brood nest.  The
question here is, do others see this late in the season, and does anyone
have info about laying workers existing and rearing drone brood in a normal
queenright hive?    Thanks for any comments  -J