Smokin'

[freethorpe bees]

Found my girls react very badly to the shredded cardboard found in Thornes packaging - pity as it lights and smokes very well. Also tried creating my own rolled up corrugated cardboard rolls but they gave off a very nasty smoke - as mentioned you never know what they have been treated with.

I think my girls react badly to this as well. I don't blame them as I accidentally got a direct whiff of it last week and it was a horrible smell!

 

[SixFooter]

Dont smoke my girls as they could hit me with their handbags. However, I smoke some of my bees and use a water spray with some others. I find some colonies react badly to smoke, so use water. If you buy something from thornes, they'll package it up with loads of smoker fuel.

 

[wilderness]

I found some plastic coated cardboard in some of the packaging from Thorne's this year

 

[Baggyone]

Don't forget that a brand new smoker will burn through stuff at an alarming rate. Mine was a 17 quid special offa ebay (quite a large smoker) and handles a roll of cardboard easily. BUT when new the roll would burn for about 5 minutes smoking the whole place out and then I had no smoke.

As its got older it smokes far less and I have to work it a bit more BUT I find myself using the cotten waste and not much smoke as I used to. Girls are far happier.

Baggy

 

[Silly Bee]

Sugar water is good. I also shake a bit of icing sugar as I put the hive back together, they groom each other and hopefully dislodge any varroa mites.

If I use a smoker (I try not to) get some herbs, Mint, rosemary, lavender etc.

Eucalyptus smells nice too.

 

[Stiffy]

Some of my hives need a bit of smoke and for them I use pine needles, just pull the old dry ones off the bottom of a tree or even off the ground, burns for ages and produces a nice cool smoke....smells nice too

 

[susbees]

Sugar water is good. I also shake a bit of icing sugar as I put the hive back together, they groom each other and hopefully dislodge any varroa mites.

If I use a smoker (I try not to) get some herbs, Mint, rosemary, lavender etc.

Eucalyptus smells nice too.

I've started to look at our pestulent tansy differently. Harvested the lot (instead of pulling it up) and hung it to dry in the beeshed. If anyone finds a giant puffball they don't fancy sauteed please send it to me too...we ate our recent one, great free treat.

At a tangent I do wonder if planting enough mint/eucalyptus etc would allow the bees to self-med for varroa...but I haven't been able to find which (if any) eucs will survive and flower here...

 

[Haughton Honey]

Giant puffballs are tasty....as are field mushrooms a little later in the year!

I'm currently using thymolated 1:1 syrup on some nucs and colonies (those that aren't jam packed solid with 12-16 frames of brood) and CC fuel if I need to use smoke.

 

[BeeNice]

I use the card from thornes just to start the smoker then find any bits of wood broken up small and it works well. My bees don't seem to mind and don't get mad. I don't use much smoke but after reading about the sprays I may use them, sometimes for a quick look through I don't use any smoke or spray, but it's nice to have one handy 'just in case'.

 

[m100]

I found some plastic coated cardboard in some of the packaging from Thorne's this year

All they do is receive cardboard boxes from the local population and shred them. It's never intended to be smoker fuel

Must say the external packaging Thornes are now using are much better than in the past, they still can't manage to pack things properly though...All they do is put them in a box and chuck on shredded cardboard to fill out the space.