OCCURRENCE AND SIZE OF LAYING WORKER EGGS IN APIS-FLOREA COLONIES

The occurrence of laying workers in Apis florea colonies in Thailand w as observed. Laying workers were active in 'hopelessly queenless' colo nies, and deposited eggs in large numbers even in colonies rearing que ens. Laying worker brood disappeared after virgin queens emerged, well before they started to lay eggs. Thirty eggs were collected from each of three colonies with queens and three queenless colonies with layin g workers. The average lengths of eggs deposited by queens were 1.540, 1.558 and 1.618 mm, and by workers 1.633, 1.694 and 1.783 mm. The ave rage widths were 0.348, 0.374 and 0.392 mm, and 0.418, 0.438 and 0.452 mm, respectively. Thus, laying worker eggs were larger than those dep osited by queens, although the length of the worker abdomen is about h alf of that of the queen. A high correlation was found between the ave rage length and width of eggs from different colonies. However, the co rrelation was weak for eggs deposited by particular queens.