OK
So the weather never came in so I went ahead and tried the cutout last night. They were very calm.
I found new comb (they never chose to inhabit the older comb for some reason), with nectar, open larva, and some capped brood but no emerging brood. As some have said the comb with larva in it was so soft I could not save it.
I never saw the queen, but I did dump as many bees as possible into my capture box (which did have some frames with old comb in it from a winter dead out). At first I thought I may have gotten lucky because they started fanning the entrance to the capture box and the flying bees seemed to orient towards it. I left it for the night.
This morning it looked like the entrance to the box was unattended and I saw a cluster underneath the trailer (still avoiding the old comb under there), so not as lucky as I thought. Maybe the queen will be easier to get if they are back in cluster mode, instead of spread out on comb?
If I can get them in the box, I can move them to a hive and give them some eggs from my other one. If all I can get is a small cluster, definitely larger than a softball, but maybe smaller than a soccer ball, is that enough bees to give eggs to for them to make a queen?
At least it is a really interesting experience to go through.
Weather permitting, tonight will be round two. I'm hoping I didn't kill the queen last night.