Which means the quest for the perfect beekeeping hat continues.

Currently, I wear a dang good hat. I found it online, ordered it, and have worn it for months now. Then I went to the Apple store at Kenwood Towne Center and discovered a Tula kiosk right outside the Apple store with my hat hanging all over the place.

This is the hat I wear now:

Gardener's Hat by Tula Hats

I like it because the straw is firm enough to keep its shape no matter how much I toss it around. And the brim is wide and stiff enough to hold the veil draped nicely away from my face. It fits fine. For some reason, though, I don’t like the look of the crown. The crease bugs me a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I am an absolute sucker for a beautifully shaped crown on a good hat. But I want my beekeeping hat to be creaseless. I want it round. I don’t know why.

So, this is the hat I’ve got my eye on now. I’ll probably be wearing it by the time you see me next.

Ranch Hat by Tula Hats

Perhaps you can’t tell the difference between the two, Reader, but I can. And I can report that I am not far from being satisfied with my beekeeping hat. I will look awesome in it. I may just go get that hat today…if it’s not available at the Kenwood Towne Center kiosk, then I’ll order it. (Tula Hats is located in Austin, Texas…which is practically my hometown. Which makes it even better.)

On another, non-beekeeping note: Below is the hat of my dreams…it’s worn by Mattie Ross in the newest version of True Grit. Made of pecan-colored pure beaver with a 1″ black satin ribbon with a little bow on the side. Sigh. I’m definitely gonna have it one day.

Mattie Ross hat

But I’d rather tell you about smoker bombs instead.

Keeping bees is challenging…which is probably why I’m so hooked. One constant challenge is keeping the dang smoker lit. Funny, this summer at the Zia Queenbee workshop, ten rather-experienced beekeepers all hauled our smokers and our veils to New Mexico to learn how to rear queen bees. It shocked me that each of us wrestled with our smokers. Of the ten smokers present, only one or two kept a good smoke going throughout our work in the hives.

Anyway, my friend and bee steward, Simon, has convinced me that cardboard makes great smoker fuel. He heard it somewhere. Then, I saw a video of a guy who uses rolled-up corrogated cardboard in his smoker…loading one of these bombs into the smoker feels good. It also provides for a slow, cool burn.

So, I began rolling what I call “smoker bombs” from cardboard boxes. Here they are. So far, I can report that they burn about as well as anything else. Nothing earth shattering. But they look cool, they’re completely portable, and it’s a good way to recycle.

Cardboard smoker bomb

Why clear all that stuff from the house, the shed, the barn? Sometimes you just need to make some room. Creativity requires room. How can new things come to you, Reader, if there’s no space in which to hold it?

So, Brent (the guy who leases the farm to run some cattle) has recently changed his life. He’s made room in it for new things, and he’s ready to keep bees. We’re thinking of starting about 10 hives down there next spring. The farm is a 2-hour drive from here, and because we get down there only about once a month, it’s important to have someone keeping an eye on the bees…and Brent seems perfectly delighted at that prospect. He’s decided on a spot against a fence for the hives. He’s planning to seed a field in clover. For whatever reason, a reason I have no need to understand, Brent needs bees. Just as I did.

You know, Reader, I find it quite fascinating that some people—people such as Brent and me (and perhaps even you)—become ready. I don’t know how to describe it, but I can spot it right away. A light appears in the eye. A space is held open in the body for it. Other people make polite conversation, but those who are ready cannot be satisfied with small talk. Might as well go ahead and buy those people a smoker of their own.

Rauchboy

You should smell my car. Well, first you should know that I drive a 12-year old Nissan Pathfinder (it has over 160K miles on it, but I’m not giving it up…I figure I can get 250K miles out of it. I don’t quit on things).

My car smells like smoke and beeswax, and it’s a joy to sit in when I’ve been visiting beeyards. Why? Because the smoker’s still smoldering in the car, and I often have some freshly used frames of beeswax in there with me.

So, let’s talk about the smoker—which is the single most important tool when it comes to keeping bees. Even those beekeepers who don’t routinely wear veils use smoke. I’ve never met a beekeeper who doesn’t have a smoker lit and ready to use when visiting the bees, and I probably wouldn’t work with one who didn’t.

And wouldn’t you know it? The single most important beekeeping tool is also one of the most pleasant and sensory to use…but it’s also (initially) a pain in the neck. It takes some time and some attention (and some experience) to get a smoker properly puffing away…and I admit, it’s tough to carve out the necessary time and attention when you’re in a rush to open a hive. Frankly, I’ve come to think of lighting the smoker and nurturing the smoke from it as a sensory way to transition from the rush rush rush of daily life to the calmer behaviors appreciated by the bees.

You want to know why beekeepers use smokers, don’t you, Reader? Well, the short of it is this: Beekeepers announce their arrival at the hive by puffing a bit of smoke into the hive entrance and under the lid. This announcement leads the bees to think there may be fire in the area, so they begin the process of engorging with honey in the event they must leave to find a new place to live. And when bees eat honey, they become calm. A bee filled with honey does not want to sting. However, in the event a bee didn’t get the message and does sting, the smoke serves to mask the alarm pheromone (emitted at the time of the sting) that signals other bees of danger; so, it reduces the chances of more stings.

We keep the smoker lit and puffing away in the event the bees become agitated. A little cloud of cool smoke settles everyone down…including the beekeeper who, when she operates those billows, feels as if she may have some sort of control over the world. Which she does not have at all. But it smells nice and looks cool.

All of this to say that I’m now using a new smoker—a Rauchboy. From Germany. It looks awesome and smolders like crazy. It’s a little more expensive than the run-of-the-mill smokers, but I want mine to stand out in a crowd. I’ve kept it lit in the backyard just for the heck of it…just so it can hurry up and get its patina on.

I think my aesthetics are just different from most.

I LOVE the corrugated tin roof, but it presented a safety issue. No one would go near its shredded edges. The words “to the bone” were often heard. So, on Friday, my friend Sherry and I headed to Loesch Hardware store (where those guys can figure anything out), and we bought some trim stuff and some silicone calk. We trimmed the aluminum shards from the cut edges; we bent the corners down; we lined the edges with this rubber trim stuff and calked it in silicone. Now it’s safe, and I still like it. (Once the sun comes up, I’ll take a picture of it and post it for you.)

Next time, though, I’m going to a metal fabricator to have my tin cut.

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I’ve already got plans for a wider, shorter one…one that will accept the frames from my medium-depth Langstroth hive boxes. I want the flexibility of swapping frames from any hives in my yard.

I learned, though, from Michael Bush (I think of Michael Bush as I the Walter Cronkite of beekeeping: the most trusted name in bees) on Beemaster.com., that the waxed-string guides aren’t much of a guide. So, on my next hive, I’ll use something else I have up my sleeve. Shit. I thought I had the perfect solution to a simple guide. I think I’ll leave the waxed string on this hive, though, and see for myself how the bees deal with it.

Also: I love the look and the function of the corrugated tin roof, but cutting it is a bitch. And I’m sure to get little slivers of tin in my hands whenever I inspect the hive. Either slivers or stitches. I gotta find a metal smith to help me cut it better.

My first Kenya top-bar hive

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And a few of my hives have those augur holes drilled in them. Which means I need to plug those holes so the bees can more easily regulate the temperature in there. This hole-drilling practice was something I saw done by Chris, the guy who started me beekeeping…so I did it too. I thought it was a great idea to give the bees some more air. Maybe because I like to have a lot of fresh air myself. Funny how we project our need on others, isn’t it?

But I’ve since learned that the bees don’t need me to give them air. They do better when they regulate the temperature and moisture in their own homes. It’s as if someone were to come into your home and open or close all the windows or fiddle with your thermostat. That’s just rude…and then I’d have to go around spending unnecessary time and energy readjusting your decision for me.

Anyway…it’s cold, and those augur holes need to be plugged. I want to use corks from wine bottles because they’re made from natural material. But I don’t drink alcohol, so it’s tough coming up with corks. Last year I plugged the holes with pine cones. So, if you’re sitting around drinking bottle after bottle of wine, please forward your corks my way. I need about 6 or 8 of them.

Then I heard more bees. In my hair. By this time I was running through the yard slapping. And getting stung. (Yes, Reader, I am well aware that this slapping and freaking out doesn’t help the situation. I’m not stupid.) I picked up an old sweatshirt laying in the yard and began slapping my head with that. I got stung about 6 times—in my head and ear and neck.

Once the stinging stopped, I realized that all this slapping had flung my glasses off my face. Probably deep into the woods. Deb and I have searched and searched and we can’t find them. We even went out there at night to see if the beam from a flashlight would reflect off them. No.

I am now wearing very very old glasses. I look odd, and I can’t read.

But here’s your damn video. (Once again, I forgot to turn the camera sideways for the wider view. I don’t know why I can’t remember to do that. Sorry.)

But what the callers usually describe are not swarms of bees. You see, Reader, a swarm is a very specific term used for bees in the midst of migrating from one home to another. Before they swarm, they’re part of a colony of bees. When they leave that colony and set up a new home, they’ll once again be a colony of bees. While they’re between the two—while migrating—they’re considered a swarm. They move from “colony” to “swarm” to “colony.”

A swarm is usually spotted hanging in a big, droopy, living, breathing blob on a tree branch or a light post or some other structure on which it’s easy to hang together. The swarm waits there for about 12-48 hours until the scout bees decide on a new home; once the new home is found…poof!…the swarm is gone in a blink of an eye. While it hangs there, however, a swarm of bees seems both awesome and scary (I call it “sublime”), so people call a beekeeper about it.

Honeybee swarm

There’s a swarm season, Reader. Bees in Ohio usually swarm during our spring months…April through June.

I’ve discovered that people who call me about “a swarm” (when we’re not in swarm season) really mean to report “a lot of bees swarming around” their roofline or their doorframe or their soffit; the bees have been “swarming” for a while, and the caller is worried. Well, Reader, this is not a swarm…remember, a swarm doesn’t yet have a home of its own. The good news is this: The bees these callers call about already have a nice home. The bad news for the caller is this: The bees’ home is also the caller’s home.

This post is getting too long, so I’ll finish it tomorrow.