> The rules: > > Your choice of reasonable, plausible smoker fuels (no gasoline) and > smoker, and a book of matches. > > First to light and and set down her/his smoker wins, provided the smoker > keeps going by itself for a set period of time -- I seem to recall five > minutes. I have won the Midwestern Beekeepers smoker contest before but usually let the newbees enter and keep on talking bees and watch. Our rules: Each beekeeper either brings a smoker or the club provides a box of old smokers for those forgetting smokers. Each entrant is given a 2 in. by 10 in. ( size can very but ALL burlap provided is the same size) and TWO wooden stick matches. A time period is started ( 2-3 minutes) for all entrants to light their smoker and set in place. The smoker can not then be touched. The judge turns over each smoker as it goes out until a winner is declared. Rules vary but the above were ours. One secret to winning usually is placement of the smoker so whatever wind is available blows across the spout keeping the burlap lit. Another is to make sure your burlap is going good before closing the lid. After as many beekeeper picnics as I have attended you get a feel for what the smoker smoke coming out the spout should look like. Not too heavy and not too light. Those adjusting "draft" by smoker placement try not to be obvious about what they are doing but at the next smoker contest notice all the old timers smokers are usually facing alike. bob *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm