> I wonder if it is more likely that the problem he observed was simply drone layer hives developing after failed requeening post-swarming?

Come to think on it, I would say you were right. A watchful beekeeper would know his bees had swarmed and would monitor them to ensure they got straightened out. Dr. C. C. Miller wrote in response to the question:

In July Gleanings, page 407, A. Butsch says: "The statement has been made that when bees are left to their own devices every queen is superseded before she dies.” I plead guilty to having made the statement mentioned, and of course know that when a colony ceases to exist, whether it be blown up by dynamite, starves in winter, or dies because nothing but drone brood is left in the hive, there can be no supersedure. 

His bees only "in a few exceptional cases" rear a successor to a failing queen;  my bees, I think, do not in one case in a hundred fail to rear a successor. It may be worth while to find out, if we may, what is, in general, the observation of others in this matter.

[Our experience with failing queens is much the same as Dr. Miller's. In those rare instances in which the failing queen is not superseded, we have always supposed that the bees did their part and raised a young queen, but that she became accidentally lost—perhaps in mating. We understand that there is quite a loss in the mating of virgins in the West Indies. Possibly this would explain the difference in the experiences of Mr. Butsch and Dr. Miller.—Edi tor.] 

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