Several years ago one cool still morning I thought my hive in my back yard had caught fire. What appeared to be thin white smoke was pouring upwards and outwards from just above the bottom entrance - but of course it was water vapour. Moisture-laden air was issuing from the entire length of the bottom entrance (the only entrance) although a small patch of bees was fanning on one side only of the landing board. The plume rose to just above the top of the 4-storey (full-depth boxes) hive before dissipating, by which point it was about a metre across. Judging from the apparently very large volume of air being moved. it seemed to me that the bees would have no difficulty in rapidly evaporating large volumes of moisture from their hive. In the 28 years that I've had the hive in that spot I've only seen this phenomenon the once - and never from numerous other hives both here and in other countries. Regards, Barry Donovan Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand.