Well I put a box under the hive end before i opened it up, "just in case". Glad I did, about half the clump dropped in when I pulled the lid. Inside things looked normal. The frames had fewer bees on them than when I put them in but were still well covered. I pushed back the follower and gave them a couple more empty frames on both side of the four drawn and one empty I moved when the split got made, then scooped off the rest of the clump and dumped the mess back inside. Iddee I got your comment just now, but it is reassuring...will a queen just wander out?
They seemed to settle right back down after 20 min. I guess tomorrow will be the test.
Most likely I just misjudged the volume of bees I moved over and didn't give them enough space. Is it possible additional bees from the parent hive smelled the queen and moved over?
Perhaps it was just "bearding" but it was quite unlike what I had seen before...I think all those bees would have been hard pressed to fit in without the additional space, but my sense of cluster volume is pretty week.