Bee Karma for the Death of the Queen: What Goes Around, Etc.

I have felt such deep regret for killing the beautiful queen in the Blue Heron hive. I replaced her with a Purvis brothers queen on August 20. I went into the hives on the 5th of September to see if she had been released. I had visited the hive weekly since I installed her to add a ziploc food baggie, but had not checked to see if the queen were released.

Indeed she was released as the empty cage below shows.



The hive was filled with bees and there was a quiet calm to the hive.



When Julia installed her Purvis brothers' queen, she had frame after frame of gorgeous brood to show for it. This hive, upon full inspection, had little to no brood and I saw no uncapped brood or eggs. At the bottom of one frame there were three opened queen cells - two ripped open and one with an opening at the bottom.

My guess is that the Purvis queen didn't work out and they made their own queen who may or may not get mated and do OK before winter. I think if there were no queen, I would have had a hard time with the inspection - they were quiet and calm and I used no smoke (didn't even have my smoker with me).

I am so discouraged by this whole process. I feel even worse that I killed the healthy queen and now the whole hive may die. I don't want to spend another $44 (queen plus shipping) on a failed endeavor (and frankly, don't have money to do that right now), and I don't want the hive to die. Bad Karma - all the way around - it seems to me.