New Queen died. Open to advice.

[John D.]

Last Wed I enlisted the help of a friend to help me find the queen in a hive I planned to requeen. The old queen I was anticipating to find was marked (green) but on the second look-through we found an unmarked queen, removed her, marked her white & returned her & never saw the green queen so I presumed she wasn't there. The new queen arrived Thur. so I went to the hive to remove the queen we marked white & wait 24 hrs to introduce the new queen. While looking for the newly marked white queen I saw the old marked green queen so I removed her & tried to find the white marked queen to no avail. On Fri. I went out to try to find the white marked queen & finally did after two look-throughs so I removed her to wait 24 hrs. The new queen died on Sat. so I took the green marked queen since I knew her lineage & put her back in the hive. The new queen did not have any attendants in her cage since she was shipped with several dozen other queens bulk with loose attendants to our bee association. The bulk package was shipped Tue. so it doesn't seem like we're dealing with a long extended period. I gave her a few drops of water every day but did not try to feed her, thinking the candy plug would give her sustenance. Also, the temerature where I kept her never got below the mid 60's.
My question is where did I mess up? Should I have fed her a couple of drops of syrup, not wait 24 hr or what? Thanks.

John

[peggjam]

" I gave her a few drops of water every day but did not try to feed her, thinking the candy plug would give her sustenance. Also, the temerature where I kept her never got below the mid 60's."

Unlike virgin queens, mated queens will die without attendants in the cage with her at all times, or in a bulk bee box with nurse bees to feed her through the wire. Your queen starved to death.

What I would've done is put her cage above an excluder where there were nurse bees to feed and care for her until you were ready to put her in her own hive.

[John D.]

Thanks for your response. I hope I live long enough to graduate from BK 101.