Thanks to all for the great responses to my original question. I inadvertently began a *smoker debate* with my post. The main reason I have not been using a smoker is time. I have two small children and a stay-at-home wife who like to see me when I am not working my crazy swing shifts, so when I go to do inspections, I try to save as much time as possible. Leaving the smoker home seemed to be the best bet on saving time. I had previously had very little *need* for it anyway, as my hives were generally very docile as long as I worked them in sunny weather (Italians, by the way). Also puzzling to me is that this behavior just cropped up after I split the hive a few weeks ago. They were just as docile as the other hive, which I also split, until then. I now have 4 hives and all are still docile except this one. She *is* however the only queen to remain of the original two I started with. The other queen died or was killed and the queens from the two queen cells suffered the same demise. I had to buy three new queens to replace them. Thanks again, everyone! Any more input? Steve Creasy- (\ Maryville, Tennessee USA {|||8- Proverbs 24:13,25:16 (/