>So here is my plan. I'm going to set a double screen between this hive and another. (This one on top) and leave them for awhile. How long you think? And if this one does have a laying worker, would I still need to shake them out. Or just wait for all these drones to hatch and see if there is more.
I have tried many methods to resolve laying workers. Some of them work some of the time. Most of them fail most of the time. The simplest and most practical solution is to take the laying worker hive and move it. Then shake them all out on the ground in front of your other hives. Either put the empty frames on other hives or put them in the freezer to kill the drone brood and THEN put them in other hives. This is the simplest, most straightforward, most foolproof thing to do with a laying worker hive. Later you can split one of your srtronger hives and then you'll have another hive again.
If you really want to waste a lot of time and effort resolving the laying worker scenerio here are the things I have done that sometimes work.
1) Put a frame of worker brood in and see if they will raise a queen. Occasionally they do. Usually they don't.
2) Put a queen cell in (either a frame from a hive trying to supercede or swarm or one that you made by queen rearing techniques). Sometimes they will let the queen emerge. Usually they will tear it down.
3) Put a virgin queen in. Just smoke it heavily and run her in. Sometimes they will accept her. Usually they will ball her.
4) Put a laying worker hive over an queenright hive on a double screen board (as you are proposing). After about a week, do a newspaper combine. Usually they will accept the queen. Sometimes they will kill the queen in the queenright hive and you now have a very large laying worker hive.
5) Put a laying worker hive over a queenright hive on a double screen board (as you are proposing) and after about a week, shake the laying worker hive out in front of the queen right hive. This almost always works.
6) Make a queenright nuc from a queen and some brood from a queenright hive. Put the nuc over a double screen board over the laying worker hive. After a week do a newspaper combine. Usually this works. Sometimes they kill the queen.
7) Put a frame of emerging brood with a queen in a push in cage in the laying worker hive. After a week or so release her. This usually works. Sometimes they will kill the queen.
>Do you think the drone cells will stop after the scent of a queen get purged through this box?
No. Not until they are combined. The QMP from the queen won't get through the doublescreen (it is passed from probiscus to probiscus). A few other queen pheromones will waft through. I don't think they will supress the laying workers.
>Or perhaps after placing these on top, just let them do there thing untill no more bees in there, then merge the combs. Perhaps some, most of the workers might actually drift into the lower box.
They may drift to the queenright hive. A lot of workers in laying worker hives do.