@Absinthe what is the end result of that, unchecked?

@freemo Dead colony.

When a queen is raised and she hatches she will go around and tear apart any other queen cells and kill any other virgin queens she can find. Then she goes away and has her mating flight where she will have sex with as many drones (from other colonies) as possible. Likely about 20 of them. They mate in flight. The drones break off their penis inside the queen and she stores all their sperm in her spermatheca. When she returns to the hive her pheromone will start the proper behaviors. However, if after that point the workers detect any problems with the queen they will begin making queen cells (they can make a queen cell with any fertilized egg under 3 days old.) In preparation for her demise. However, if she fails and they haven't created queen cells, or whatever, this is when you can get a laying worker. If they have a laying worker they will no longer try to make a queen cell, and the laying worker's eggs are not of any use to make females anyway, and she lays a whole bunch of them in a cell not just one.

Once they have no viable egg to make into a queen, the colony will die (unless the keeper introduces a new queen)