I haven't lit a smoker for years! For some years I used a sprayer with 'liquid smoke' but this is my third year of doing neither. Normally I get no more stings than I did previously but a couple of days ago I was savaged by bees as soon as I lifted the lid, which is why I am typing this with swollen hands! On the odd occasion I have scrounged a cigarette from a spectator and used it successfully.
When Varroa first appeared here in the early 1990s we were shown by Government inspectors how to use tobacco smoke to cause a mite drop but it seems to have gone out of fashion.
Chris
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