Bee Funeral

I'm bay-bee-sitting a nucleus hive for some friends, and today I saw a strange and mournful sight; a group of bees tenderly paying respects to a dead virgin queen bee on the landing platform.  They were touching, sniffing, and licking her.  One was even doing a brief waggle dance for her.  

I hope that there is a live, bred queen inside the hive, because the whole purpose of having this "nuc" on my property is to get fresh genetics into my friend's apiary.  The workers would have reared several potential queens, who would then fight to the death until only one remained, and she would then fly off in search of drones to breed with.  Hopefully this wasn't her returning unsuccessfully to the hive.