When I thought of raising bees, I though many things about how the experience would be. I thought the bees might be a bit scary(yes, sometimes) and I wondered how I would ever find the queen in all those bees.(still wondering) However, I never, ever thought the hardest thing about bee keeping would be keeping the smoker going! For those of you who are bee keepers/whisperers and see no need for a smoker, I hate you. Let’s just throw that out there and get it over with, shall we?! There might be the slim possibility that the bees I am managing are just slightly more aggressive than some? Then again, how would I know? “Blondie and the Girls” definitely have their defensive maneuvers on! My son says the bees can sense that I am freaked out. Well ,yeah duh! I don’t really know how to change that fact. Not all of us can relish risk taking adventure like my son. He wants his first job to be cleaning windows on a sky scraper. I know! If It were not for the fact that I  birthed him myself I would think we were not even remotely related.

Everything about this bee thing is a mind trip. Meaning everything in your survival instincts hears the buzzing, sees the bees flying around your head and says; ” Danger! Run for your life! What is coming next is going to hurt a lot!” You have to rely on your mind to tell you the truth about the situation. Your mind tries to talk sense into the situation; “You have a bee suit on. You are very well protected.” Isn’t that the same in life. You strongly feel one way and you have to rely on your mind to tell you the truth. Sometimes you have to rely on your Father in Heaven to tell you the truth.

When you are in that bee suit sweating buckets and your glasses are slipping down your nose, in fact, the glasses aren’t the only thing slipping and you reach for your smoker, you want smoke, lots and lots of smoke right that very second!

So when bees sense smoke they naturally think there is a fire nearby, maybe it is moving toward their house? They automatically go into the hive and start gulping down honey. After all, if it is all going to go up in flames, why not drink it all? Of course they are programmed that way to help them survive and all that. Miracles from our Father, right? If you can take a long look at bees and claim there is not a creator than you are stubborn indeed, or maybe just a bit dense?

In comes George, my bee friend, to save the day. He says burlap is the key to starting the smoker. First of all, I love having friends who actually know what they are doing with bees! Second, I love simple solutions. Being who I am, I can’t really have a truly simple solution to anything. So I used his tip about burlap to make some fire starters.

What you will need:

• cardboard egg cartons
• lots of dryer lint
• burlap(from the fabric store)
• cotton string or twine to tie around the top

Put a few leaves and twigs above this, light it up and you have smoke, lots of blessedly cool smoke. Better still you have busy bees. Busy sucking up the honey instead of defending the hive that is! Thank you, George! You have no idea how you have made my bee experience so much sweeter!

Happy bee keeping, We are wishing you lots of cool smoke for your bees!

Blessings, Dash & Family