"Keeler, Lisa" wrote:

  Is it just smoke (which I don't use)?  Some writers don't use smoke at all.

Lisa -

Smoke makes a beekeepers life so much simpler.  The trick I learned with time
was to know how much smoke is needed.  I seldom open a hive without smoke for
crowd control.  Usually little is required, but I smash a lot fewer bees when I
can encourage them to go down inside before I handle frames, replace inner
covers, etc...  The bee brush is not as effective.  I try to be gentle with the
hives, and usually the bees respond by being gentle with me.  Time is the
teacher; the bees are the members of the class.  I encourage the nubees around
here not to just smoke, but to learn to smoke wisely.

A strange question for the list - I talk to my bees while I work them.  Do
others do this?  How do the bees respond?  It might be that talking is therapy
for me and not noticed by the bees... but I do anthropomorphize my bees.

Larry Krengel
Marengo, IL
USA