Have collected 2 swarms this week, none from my hives.
1st swarm was on Monday, swarm in the middle of a housing estate on some decking and up the fence. Has a feeling that HM was under the decking, so with the home owners permission removed one of the planks ( fairly new decking so screws were easy to undo), pulled a hand full if bees, no joy. Pulled up a second hand full and there she was a fairly large unmarked queen. Put a qe under the brood box popped her in a queen cage for safe keeping in the hive while getting as many bees as possible in the hive, then let her out. Left for a couple of hours returned to find most the bees had left the hive and were clustered on the side (10pm), queen was still in the hive with a smallish amount of bees. Picked the cluster and popped them back in. Went back the next evening and they were all happily in the hive.
2nd was collected last night,a smallish swarm clinging on to a fence post in the middle of a open airdrome in the cold and driving rain. They had been there for 2 days, saw post about it on Facebook. Said i would go and get them. Some woman then tried to warn me off and told me I shouldn't be collecting them, they should only be collected by the local areas authorised swarm collector. So i was even more determined to get them. Just has to peel them off the fence post as they were so tightly clusters together with the cold. About a fifth had already perished. Don't know what i have as it was to cold to be messing around. But they were happy and very busy today bringing in pollen. Will have a closer look at them on the weekend.
Need to get more equipment now.