I never thought I would eliminate young a queen with such pleasure.
I went through my hives this afternoon and found one hive with plenty of polished, empty cells waiting for eggs. After finding one big queen cup and no brood whatsoever, the first thought that came to my mind was that the hive had somehow gone queenless---but their behavior didn't agree with that conclusion. The bees were calm and busy. Then I came across the queen. She had emerged from a queen cell I placed in the prepared hive in the fall. Her abdomen was dark and slim. Something had obviously gone wrong with her matings. At this time of year all the young queens are golden, plump and heavy.
To my good fortune, I discovered a nice sized prime swarm that had moved into a stack of empty supers not more than a meter away and the queen looked like everthing one could desire. She had already filled a few frames with brood.
With nary a second thought, I took the non-laying queen, gave her a squish and threw her away. I took the swarm with the queen, organized the frames properly and put them on the floor of the eggless hive, covered it with slit newspaper and placed the original hive on top. Many of the swarm bees continued returning to the stack of supers so I removed the frames they were on and used them to strengthen some other hives and took away all the boxes so that there was nothing to return to. Last step was to place the emptied supers near the entrance of the newly organized hive with the hope that the remaining bees hanging on would eventually enter that hive or one of the others nearby.
Time will tell if I did the right thing.