> While doing some research on pheromones I came across a piece of research 
> being done in either Australia or New Zealand on laying workers in a 
> queenright
> hive.

From the archives:-

"Ben Oldroyd has sent me a copy of his work on the drones above the 
excluder.
The reference for anyone wanting to follow this up is:-

Nature  Vol 371 27 October, 1994 page 749.  It appears in the scientific
correspondence section.  The title is "Anarchy in the beehive - Benjamin P.
Oldroyd, Adam J. Smolenski, Jean-Marie Comuet and Ross H. Crozier"

By the way, the queen had mated with at least 12 drones."

I was also at the same Asian Apicultural Conference in Perth Western 
Australia as Peter Detchon and it was certainly very interesting.  The 
laying by workers in queen right hives was more pronounced in Apis cerana. 
Figures quoted were that 1 - 5% of workers in queen-right cerana colonies 
had activated ovaries whereas Apis mellifera is less than 0.01%.

Trevor Weatherhead
Coming to Apimondia in Australia in 2007?

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