Good Morning, ID, I hear you got a little more snow up there. Guess you'll have a couple more weeks of winter.
Well, the easiest best way to collect a new hive is to have an empty one, or two, set up close by for the bees to get familiar with before they swarm. Then, when the queen has been mated and they are done with their business, hopefully they will like the empties enough to move in and occupy by themselves.
But I did not do that in time. I got an empty hive box just a few weeks before they swarmed so they did not have time to get used to it. So when they first swarmed, I got lucky and they collected in three swarms on the fence. I held the empty hive below the clump on the fence and my sister scraped them off the fence with a wide putty knife and into the hive. We did not get stung at all because the bees are only interested in taking care of their business. But the first clump we scraped into the hive did not have a queen, so after getting them into the hive and closing it up they all left. But the second clump we scraped off the fence did have a queen so we got one new hive.
Unfortunately, I only had the one extra hive, so a couple days later when the main hive swarmed again, they landed in the top of our neighbors magnolia tree. They hung out in a clump in that tree for about 4 or 5 days before finding their new home somewhere. I hate I lost that swarm because that had my original queen and was easily over a thousand bees. If I had had a new empty hive set up in the yard for them, that they were already familiar with, then they probably would've occupied it, but since I didn't, they have found a new home.
So I have two hives now, one old one and one new one, but not nearly as many bees. I have one new empty hive set up and want to get a couple more so I'm ready for the next swarm, which probably won't be until next Spring.
It's usually the second year before you have any honey worth collecting, so maybe I'll have something by the end of this year.
You ought to get yourself a hive set up and see if anything moves in!
Have a Good Easter Weekend!