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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;all_fakes, post: 10267403, member: 55&quot;]More accurately called a &quot;smoker&quot; - one lights a small smoky smoldering fire in it - I&#039;d use old leaves myself - then blow through it to distribute the smoke into a hive - it calms the bees down. They think the hive is on fire, and fill themselves with honey; and honey-filled bees generally won&#039;t sting.&nbsp; Modern smokers have a bellows arrangement to blow the smoke.</p><p>My own hives never just flew off-once you have bees in a hive, they are very unlikely to all leave. But they will make new queens, and the new queen will fly off with some of the colony. But if your colony starts to make new queens, you should notice the oversize cells being prepared for new queens, when you inspect the hive. You can choose to destroy those cells before new queens are made; or you can prepare for that event by putting a new empty hive-box nearby, and the new queen will go into it and then you&#039;ll have two hives.</p><p>I found bee-keeping to be easy and fun; did get some honey, but had to rent a centrifuge to extract it (one can also just put the honey, combs and all into jars, without extracting), and then the local bee-keeper&#039;s supply/rental outlet closed, and when we sold our house, I sold the hives to the new owner and got out of the bee-keeping hobby.</p><p>(Laura-if you have any bee-keepers or honey hobbyists in your area, they might be able to supply you with a queen and advice on getting started at a lower cost. I started almost for free when a swarm settled in my attic; I was advised to just buy a hive and set it nearby. Bees would rather live in a hive with correct bee-dimensions than in an attic - and sure enough, they moved into the hive and I was in the bee business.&nbsp; That original hive spawned new queens and swarms twice more, so I eventually had three hives, never having actually bought any bees.)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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