I belong to a local club and one of the members posted up a lead on a colony that built comb on a tree branch. It looked like a huge swarm in the photo:

I got my smoker lit and puffed a little smoke on them so I could see what they had built:

So I spent 5 hours getting the comb transferred to my frames with rubber bands and they are mostly moved in. My problem now is there are about 500 bees that remain on the tree in a ball and they won't move into the boxes. I have gone back 3 times now to move the hive and each time i see there are still bees on the tree.
Yesterday I went back with a bee vac and tried to vacuum them off the tree. I ended up setting it on blow and blowing them off the tree and then scraping as much wax of the limb as possible. I then decided to wrap the limb with duct tape and then i wrapped a black trash bag over the wax area and taped it again.
After I got all of the limb covered, I stepped back and noticed these 500 bees are now sitting a foot father up the limb in a small group. I am pretty sure the queen is in the box and these guys are just holdouts who refuse to live in a box. I just don't know if there is something else I should do or try.
Here's a pic of what was left on the tree before I scraped the heck out of it yesterday:

I'm starting to think I got all I could and I should stop worrying about the final few that remain. Is that reasonable? Any ideas on what else could be done?

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