Hi All/John First a happy Xmas to all! John asked whether I could ask my hippie friend to try and put some cannabis in a smoker sometime and see what it does to bees/evertying else nearby. I personally know places where cannabis grows wild nearby here, but would not be willing to risk accidentally zapping myself in the proccess or getting zapped by narcs as well. It is interesting to note however that the olnly reasonn the plant actually wastes valuable energy on making cannabinols is to protect itself from isects, producing a neurotoxin that damages co-ordination. In real life, on only has to either try/ look at other who use cannabis to discover it can have a extremely demotivating effect - would it have that on the bees too? THC is fat soluble so would also impregnate in the wax. I have heard of a umber of other things people put in their smokers though. Local Xhosas use sneezewood chips placed in a burlap bag as a smoker fuel - this makes bees completely passive. Sneezewood is a hard, wax impregnated wood that does not rot. It is toxic to bugs, fungi and so on because of the wax. People have in the past used it to make ballbearings for mills. People also use rubber tyres in zimbabwe, and I have heard of other things, like placing a cigarette in the smoker that purportedly calm the bees. Anybody else heard of funny smoker fuels that defy common sense? On the topic of bees and drugs: I read of an experiment where people adminnistered a number of different drugs to spiders. (since made famous by cartoon artists) The idea being that a spider can tell you a bit about how it feels by its web. Methamphetaminne produces a neat and ective web, cannabis a sketchy useless web, LSD a rather artistic multidimensional web and so on. Imagine a beehive under the same conditions!! Keep well Garth --- Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Apis melifera capensis Grahamstown 800mm annual precipitation 6139 Eastern Cape South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 On holiday for a few months Rhodes University Which means: working with bees 15 hours a day! Interests: Fliis and bees Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way reflect those of Rhodes University.