My first cutout.....now what?

[Mason]

I did my first cutout yesterday.  It was out of an old shack in the woods in Sparta Georgia.

I did some things right and some things wrong but I ended up with a bunch of bees and probably 150lbs plus of honey comb.  I wish I had pictures but I was really too focused to photograph.

Here's what I did right or wrong.  I cut through the old sheet rock from inside the old shack and exposed a wall of bees.  Probably 5x6 feet of comb 3 layers deep.  I started cutting out the honey comb, shaking/brushing off the bees into the walls and ploppinng the comb into an ice chests.  2 full big igloo coolers full of honey comb.  There was some brood comb and I put that into frames with rubber bands and into a deep.  I tried to use a shop vac to capture loose bees but it proved to abusive and killed most of the bees that got sucked up.  I notice the bees collecting in clumps at the top of the hive area and sprayed them with sugar water, scooped them into my hands and plopped them into the deep.  Easily over 10 deep frames of bees captured.  I never saw the queen. 

The plan:  I am going to put some food on the new hive, wait a couple of days and inspect for a queen.  Any other advice is appreciated.

extraction plan: I suppose I am going to do a combination of crush and strain as well as using those big mesh bags in my extractor.  Again any other suggestions are welcome.

What an adventure.  I have to hand it to my brother who has never even inspected a hive for helping out.

Worst case scenario......I got a bunch of honey and a new beekeeper buddy.  I sure hope I can get the bees to stick around and thrive.

Wish I knew for sure if the queen made it home.  I put the hive on a stump last night and opened the entrance.  They have not left as of today.   

[AllenF]

Being as we are in the dry times that we are in, you might could feed a lot of that honey back to them.  It would help them out with comb building and fixing the old comb to the frames.   But sugar water is cheaper than honey also.  Look for eggs in a week. 
Also I have had several people almost upset with me because I had no  comb honey to sell this year.  Drop some of the cleaner, newer looking comb into jars when you are crushing it.   Make that money.