Early release queen allowed to live long enough to lay a few eggs

About ten days later, I found larvae and queen supersedure cells, but couldn't find a queen. Someone was laying though. A few days later, an experienced beekeeper came by and also couldn't find the queen. His impression was that they had let her lay a few eggs and then killed her off, or she died. The good news was that I had queen cells. The bad news was that the hive was shrinking with no living queen.