I don't think i will ever succeed

[East Texas Pine Rooter]

What a summer, i have been working myself to get several hives going. I went to check on the speaker box hive, i put in deep supers monday. they were up in the pine tree all in a swarm cluster. I through a line over the tree limb, and hauled up a swarm trap. the swarm box is located right next to the cluster, if not touching it. i put a brood comb, with about 9-drops of lemongrass oil. it's a strong odor. I put it up, just before dark. after it had been there a couple of hours, about 9:30 pm central time, the cluster hadn't budged, just got bigger. this is the second swarm in 10-days. i rubber baned ther brood, put on a second brood box that had 10 frames of 1-inch starter strips of 4.9mm foudation. i didn't use a queen excluder. I put a rapid feeder on top fo frames, in another empty hive box, and put ther honey ontop of the feeder. I thought they were all set. i have a top entrance, and bottom entrance. i was up to 4-hives, and now down to 2. Should i just plan on buying nukes next spring, and forget about capturing ferel bees?
Can you give me some pointers on what i'm doing wrong?

[Michael Bush]

Lemongrass oil is powerful stuff. A drop is good. A couple is ok. I wouldn't use more than three.

I've never had any luck luring a swarm that was already in a tree. I always have to keep knocking them out and putting them back in the box until they settle or I find the queen. If I find the queen I put her in a hair clip queen catcher and put that in the hive and then they stay. In a couple of days I let her out, since I often don't know if she's a vrigin or not, unless she's marked. If she's marked I put an excluder on the bottom board as an includer to keep her from leaving for a week or so.

[Daisy]

What comes to mind is that the bees are wild. So for example, if they don't go in the box, you might have to go up to the cluster and shake them inside a box.

All the swarms I've caught were shaken into a box and then I put them into the place I wanted them. It's probably just luck that a swarm is caught in a baited box.

It doesn't seem like beekeeping is as simple as it was twenty five, thirty years ago. In most places.

I wonder what regions are best for keeping honeybees?

[East Texas Pine Rooter]

It takes awhile for me to think a project through. My farm tractor has a front end loader. i took it out, put the box in the bucket, raised it under the swarm, and hit the limb with 10-pound sledgh hammer. Viola! they fell into the box. There were a few still on other limbs, i started to scoop them into a small seed scoop, without any glooves, big mistake. Luckly i had put the bees in the box, in the hive first. I put an queen excluder on to keep her in. They have a rapid feeder full of syrup, and honey comb laying on tof of feeder. I will take excluder off next week, and replace it with propolis trap. thanks for your help.