Let me tell you what happened to me yesterday concerning a swarm. I had a swarm
very high on an oak limb. Using a 10 foot step ladder, a 16 foot pool extension pole and bee vac hose attached to that, along with my reach of at least 7 or more feet with my arms extended with the pole in hand above my head, the swarm was still too high, it was still 10 -15 feet out of reach. So what did I do? I retrieved the bow fishing outfit equipped with a blunt special (made by me) tip. I tied the heavy duty, (thin trot line) string to the tip of the arrow with a slip knot on the tip shank, then screwed it into the shaft. Made a perfect shot over the high reaching limb. Attaching a tree climbing arborist rope to the end of the hanging string, then pulled the rope into place. Next placed a king size bed sheet in the prospected (landing area along with a nuc box equipped with drawn out frames. This usually will work in most cases. However, when the limb was shaken the bulk of the bees were already back in flight by the time they reached the ground because of the extra height. (If I could have saturated the swarm with half and half sugar water spray that surely would have helped solve this problem but accomplishing this was a unresolvable problem within itself). Yes, many did make it back to earth when shook but not enough to make a real difference and of the ones which did make it to earth and moved in the box did not stay long, rejoining their friends on the upper limb. I tried this several times throughout the day with no success. So; I decided to wait until dark or near dark, hoping the bees would land on the sheet, not fly back up in the dark, and make there way into the baited nuc box.
Everything went as planned. The bulk of the bees did indeed make it to earth this time in the twilight time of day! Everything was looking good! The deprived 4/5 light of day march was on! Man, I was thinking to myself, I'm on to something!
I noticed there were small groups of bees that were stubbornly not moving toward the nuc box, though the biggest majority was inside, or in the process of heading inside! So from time to time, I would go back out and move the whole box to the small groups, one at a time. Yes they were loading up each time! So far so good! Finally, most of the bees were inside! Awesome!
Well: This morning there was maybe 3 bees in the box when I checked and no swarm to be found. O well, we win some and we lose some. Thus another experience of a 3 year beekeeper lol. Can't win them all I suppose.