Virgin Queen dead in her Queen Cell

I inspected the nuc in question which had one capped Queen Cell which long passed the 16th day and didn't hatch. For some reason they didn't want to let her out.

So I assumed she is dead in the cell and gave this nuc a new comb with fresh eggs. I came back to check this nuc in about 3 days and found one Supersedure Cell (capped) of a very nice size (long in the middle of the comb).

I reported this on the Bio Bees forum two days ago and Bernhard (bio bees respected member) suggested I look it up today and see if the Queen is still in the cell or, as it can sometimes happen, the cell cap can close itself down after the Queen gets out looking as if the cell is still occupied.

So this is what I've found;

I opened this cell very gently with a tip of the knife making sure not to touch the Queen. I could see her head and she was not moving. She was dead :(

 

I understand that its a "bad practice" to let the nuc raise a Supersedure Queen (apparently not very good Queens) but I decided to let them do so this time and see what happens and learn from this experience. If the Supersedure Cell was tiny I would destroy it and recombine the hive with its mother colony but this cell really looks nice

I will now leave all hive in peace and not inspect until the 22nd of June when the urban beekeeping group Mykorrhiza Malmoe is to come and visit my apiary to get insight into Top Bar Beekeeping