The decline of CSX queen

Several years ago I caught a swarm at the CSX station.  This hive has been a great hive, productive and calm.  Going into winter they looked fine, but coming out of winter I thought that perhaps I lost them.  When I checked a couple of weeks ago, the number of bees was very low, but I did find a small number of eggs and larva.  I reduced them to one deep and hoped for the best.  Yesterday, when I took a look I saw no eggs and this supersedure queen cell.  You know it's a supersedure cell since it's in the middle of the frame, not the bottom of the frame and well, the queen has failed.  I don't think the workers caught it in time.  The queen cell doesn't look big enough. The must catch an egg no more then 3 days old to make a queen, I think this may have been older then that.  To try and save the hive I pulled two frames of eggs and larva to give them another go at making a better queen.  Not sure if the bees might be to old to produce enough royal jelly to do it, but we will see.