Getting bees out of a wall

[jorie]

Today my husband and i opened an outside wall of an old resturant.
we set up scaffeling because the hive entrance is on the second story of the
building.
We took the major part of the comb out and strung it up in a frame,
and put it into the hive box, which is about 4 feet from the hive entrance
in the building.
when we were working removing the comb, many bees went through a hole into
another cavity of the building.
there were many bees on the comb.
after about 5 hours we went back to the resturant, and found a cluster of bees
still in the box, and many bees still going in and out of the hole in the buildings wall.
Of course we were hoping that the queen was in the cluster in the box.
Any advice on if the queen is in the box, how long it will take for the rest of
the hive to follow.
the other fear is that , the queen may be in neither the wall or the box.
Any stories or advice would be appriciated.

[Brian D. Bray]

You haven't gotten the entire hive out of the building yet.  My bet is the queen beat feet for the other opening and they've got additional combs, etc, in their.  I'd check that out before doing anything else.  You might need another box and frames to hold all the brood combs from the cutout.  Finish the job.