I had newspaper over the box with the queen. But there were more bees in the boxes above without the queen. So maybe once they came through the newspaper, they couldn't stop the other bees from killing the queen. I didn't know that so will remember for next time. So a virgin queen has an advantage over the older queen?
So what should I have done in this case? I felt rushed for time as I didn't want laying workers. No eggs for 14 days, then a few, then no more for 10 days. I didn't think there was a queen, couldn't find one, and so assumed it was gone. How long do you look, how many times through the boxes to verify no queen? Is this a case where you have a double screened partition between them would be best? But what if there was still a faulty queen there after a period of time? What do I do next time?
I did learn from past experience that trying to save a faulty queen and trying to limp a weak box along doesn't come out well, so knew I needed to do something. But what? There are queen cells, break in brood, plenty stores, drones around, so it may work out, but if not, then I'll need to combine this with yet another, so how do I do it?