There are always exceptions in beekeeping and life.
I thought about why Mikey's original question is seldom talked about. Unless you are a researcher and working in conditions that you have created yourself, like Tom Seeley has written about, you may not be able to follow a colony that is swarming. There are subdivisions, fences, no trespassing signs, etc.
When I heard Jose Villa speak, I believe he, along with Marla Spivak, Mark Winston, Chip Taylor, and others were working in Mexico or South America. They were setting up experiments to study and reporting the results. Tests were done in a controlled situation. No fences.