Can you identify a drone laying worker?

[Loolabelle1]

Thanks all for your responses. We only have one other hive, which is a nucleus and she is doing well so we didn't want to risk combining the two and then losing our only hive but it is not large enough to take frames of brood to add to the queenless hive in the hope they might make a queen. Will see what our mentor suggests. I am not that good at seeing eggs. I did see individuals in some of the honey supers but he said that in the main hive there were loads of cells with multiple eggs. We are going to check this weekend but it doesn't sound good.

 

[Headnavigator]

Ok, I have a colony in exactly the same state as Loolabelles, except that a colleague I move a few egg-filled cells from my good colony into a frame of the DLW colony, as I can't afford to lose a whole frame from the 'good' ones. Amazingly today on inspection I find a 'queen cell' in the DLW hive. I'm not mad enough to imagine that it really is what it looks like, and recall that sometimes they will try to make queen cells from drone larvae. I can't find the reference to it though. Does anyone know how I might distinguish the real thing from a drone facsimile? i could easily be conned. Patience will not necessarily provide the answer, I fear.