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DR. MILLER S 
theory it is still true that no bee could start in as a laying worker 
after it becomes old. 
Q. Different writers claim that drone-laying workers are the 
only ones guilty of laying eggs on the sides of a cell. Last fall I 
found a colony with a drone-laying queen of previous year’s rear- 
ing, and I found lots of worker-cells with two or three eggs in a 
cell, some at the bottom and others stuck to the sides half way 
down. In such a case, is the colony liable to have laying workers 
acting in conjunction with the drone-laying queen? 
A. I think I never heard of laying workers being present 
with a laying queen, at least for any considerable time. Queens 
sometimes lay eggs on the sides of cells. 
Q. How am I to get rid of a laying worker? 
A. Generally the best thing to do with a colony that has lay- 
ing workers is to break it up, giving the bees to other colonies. 
It is difficult to get the bees to accept a queen. But if the colony 
is strong enough, and you are anxious to have it continue, you 
can give it a virgin just hatched, and this will pretty surely be 
accepted. Or, you may exchange some or all of its combs with ad- 
hering bees for frames of brood and bees from another colony 
or colonies, and the younger bees thus introduced will accept a 
laying queen. 
Q. Did you ever have any experience with laying workers in 
a hive where a young queen has hatched? This is my experi- 
ence: On May 9 I transferred a swarm of bees from a hive 
which I expected to discard on account of its odd size. On May 30 
all the brood was hatched, and on examination I found a queen- 
cell already hatched, and by searching I found the young queen. 
Today I went through the hive to see if the queen was laying, 
and all of the eggs and larvae which I found were in drone-cells 
and the eggs scattered about in worker-cells. I examined closely 
the comb on which I found the most drone-cells, and then and 
there I saw a worker doing her work. What do you think of 
that, with a young queen in the hive, and she a beauty? I closed 
the hive, thinking things might right themselves if left alone, 
but in the afternoon I found the queen on the alighting-board 
dead, with a ball of bees about her. I broke up the colony at once. 
Would you kindly tell me what you think of this case? When I 
say they had a laying worker, I mean to say that I saw her lay 
one of her eggs in a drone-cell. 
A. Your experience is quite exceptional. It is not often that 
a laying worker is caught in the act. In all my experience I never 
saw it, I think, more than once. If your bees are Italians, it is 
remarkable that laying workers should appear when they did, 
although with some of the other races laying workers are in- 
