Hi All In the last year or so I have done just over a hundred bee removals from established swarms, of which I managed to keep about 20 with their original queens. (Swarms were much more successful) When a wild swarm is disturbed, the first thing that happens is that the queen, who is usually in full laying condition and therefore does not fly easily, runs away somewhere. If she can be disturbed and caused to swarm when the hive has brood, she is not worth the effort and should be replaced, because a good queen cannot fly easily. With removals, the best philosophy (IMO) is to look at a wild swarm as a source of free bees. If they have a good trait, get the queen, but on the whole wild queens are inferior to reared queens. What I usually do is to get as many bees as possible and then just place them very gently in front of a hive that has a good queen at night, while smoking that hive to bits. The new bees (without queen), who should have been fed before adding, just run into the hive. If one wants the queen, it is better to actually add her to another hive that had a laying queen that was no good. This way they are less likely to swarm/abscond. So to get a swarm of a branch in a tree my advice would be to give it a bit of smoke, then gently cut the combs of shaking them into a nearby box. ONce all the combs are of, put the box below the branch and give the branch a good wack. The bee cluster will fall into the box, and soon they will orientate on the box. Blow the rest of the bees of the branch, or keep brushing them with a bee brush. Wiping some vinegar on the branch also helps mask the queen pheremone on the branch so that they will not keep going back to that spot (can be a pain). If you cause too much a fuss, the bees will chew up the queen - only they know why. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post.