Laying workers are generally young nurse bees who, when the queen's pheremone is no longer circulating around the hive, begin laying sterile eggs. You can usually tell if you have laying workers because they are not fussy about where they lay the eggs and generally deposit 2,3, or even 4 eggs in a single cell. Since these young bees have never taken orientation flights they don't know their way around in the big wide world outside the hive (like the field bees do) and if taken 100 feet or so away, cannot find their way back to the hive and, yes, do die in the grass. But that's a good thing because a hive with laying workers in it have only drone hatch out and eventually, without workers, are doomed!
Dump the hive (every last bee), re-queen, the field bees will find their way back to the old hive location, new bees will hatch from the brood and with the new queen pheremone circulating around the hive, all will be well (in theory)! :D