Even though it seems pretty early in the year still, on Saturday evening I decided to place an ad for swarm removal on craigslist and Sunday afternoon I had already gotten the first call. First swarm I've ever removed, but I thought it went about as smooth as it could. They were in a low bush for starters, no ladders, always a good thing... it was about a football sized swarm. At first I thought I'd try to actually find the queen and move her into the box, so I just slowly plunged my hands into the swarm (with gloves of course) and tried to find the queen in the mass of bees. After a while that began to seem futile so I just set the deep box under them and shook them down onto the frame tops then just took a step back for a while and let them settle in. They settled in nicely and didn't return to the branch so I feel confidant that I got the queen in there.
I did get stung once on the knee through my jeans, I'm not sure if I was crushing that bee though as I was kneeling at the time. Another one was adamant about trying to sting me through my veil, but it seemed to be the only aggressive bee in the bunch, I don't know what her problem was... didn't like my breath probably, can't say I blame her. :-D I forgot to bring my camera, but the homeowners took some pictures of their own and they said they'd email them to me. Anyway, I feel pretty good about it.
The bad thing is we're just about to hit a cold snap (literally today), so I'm going to have to feed them for a while right off the bat. Oh well, I certainly don't mind.