I'm in my first year of bee keeping and lost my first swarm over
Memorial weekend.  Upon returning from work this evening I found another
small swarm had obsconded.  My husband and I failed this weekend
although we made to attempts to capture that swarm.  Tonite we
successfully got it out of the tree.  Now what do I do?  Here's the
situation:

I had no extra deeps for hive bodies, just mediums with undrawn
foundation, no bottom board or lids.  So used a medium, took most of the
frames out to put in the cardboard box with few bees in it, sat it on an
altered imerie shim (sorry!) atop a flat board for a bottom, and put
another board atop it.  The majority of the bees were on the limb which
we cut down so we had first taken off what leaves were clustered with
bees and put them inside the "hive".  The remainder of the limb still
had lots of bees so we gently layed it on the ground in front of the
"hive", covered the whole thing up with sheets, hoping to form an
extended hive and to be able to funnel the bees into the "hive".   Any
other suggestions?

And if by chance we are successful at getting all the bees off the
branch and accepting the "hive", how do i go about getting the cardboard
box out of there and the rest of the frames in amongst the bees?

I have some more questions, but this one is most urgent.

Patty in Mid-Missouri
3 hives, 10 months
Faithful reader of the Bee-list