Marking queens for sacrifice

Today, finally, I think we solved the mystery of the disappearing queens. With Goulwenn as trusty side-kick at my side, we did a double inspection: while he inspected the Moon, I looked into the Star. Because of this double act we have no photos of the inspection (also because I forgot the camera...)

The Star was quickly inspected and checked: the super is almost empty and the brood box not overpopulated. There is definitely no queen there as there was no brood at any stage of development. I set aside an empty brood frame to exchange for one from the Moon with eggs on, so the Star can raise a queen (ever hopeful that the Moon did in fact have a laying queen).

I was not disappointed in this expectation: the Moon in fact has a laying queen, as evidenced by the brood frames. While I am still somewhat concerned that there are four frames not even drawn out in the brood box, the bees are obviously busy collecting as two supers are getting very heavy.
But back to the queen: I was ecstatic that we had a laying one, as this means we could introduce one into the Star and the line of Ronian regents, so seriously tested of late, can continue. We introduced a frame with brood and a sealed queen cell (why is there a sealed queen cell there?) into the Star, so they can go about making their own. And then, Goulwenn with his eagle eyes spotted the queen! She was a darker queen again, sleek and sultry. I caught her and proceeded to mark her. I waited a bit to let the paint dry and then reintroduced her into the hive. Imagine our surprise when she was mobbed and then balled by bees. The bees packed around her so tightly, we were not able to see her again. Although we tried to uncover her, it was in vain. I'm not sure whether the bees stung, suffocated or overheated her, but I am sure the queen, after a few minutes of this handling, was dead.

Why would the bees attack their own queen? Mulling this over, our first tentative theory was that the paint must cover the queen's scent (possibly it hadn't dried sufficiently). Although it's specialist queen marking paint, it obviously somehow masks the queen's scent, so that the workers attack her when she is put in their hive. This would mean that in the past every time I marked a queen, I was actually condemning her to death. So I was the culprit (and Republican) all along! Trust humans to mess things up...

I will now go through the records this year and check whether each incident of marking is followed by the queen disappearing, which would be fairly conclusive proof. One thing I know for sure: if both Moon and Star rear a queen again now, I will NOT mark her!