I asked my wife to help me to collect a swarm many years ago. The swarm was about 15 feet up in a Chinese elm tree, clustered on a limb. I propped my ladder against another nearby limb and climbed up, instructing her to hold the ladder as firmly as she could. There was a pretty good breeze going, and the limb that was holding my ladder was going back and forth. I had a 5 gallon bucket taped to a 6-foot pole, and used another pole to whack the branch the cluster was on. It was quite a rush, holding onto the ladder with my knees, using both hands to get that swarm into the bucket, all the while swaying back and forth in the wind. Of course, when I whacked the branch, I didn't get all the bees dislodged and I had to whack it several times. Way up on that ladder, swaying crazily back and forth, whacking that limb, I was only comforted be the fact that my wife was firmly holding the ladder down below.
When I figured I had as many of the bees as I was going to get, I dropped my whacking stick and climbed down. I got to the ground to discover that my wife had gotten stung on her leg early on (she was wearing shorts) and had run to the car. I love my wife dearly and she is very good at the many different things that she does, but bee-keeping isn't one of them.