42 
FOLLOWING THE BEE LINE 
hours spent in and near my Bee House, and the 
spot will always seem peculiarly my own. 
It was just a small, one-room building with a 
side door, three windows and two openings high 
up for the pigeons. Inside, I had a work bench 
with an odd but adequate collection of tools. Promi¬ 
nent among these were three articles which are 
almost necessities in a beekeeper’s equipment— 
smoker, hive tool, and bee-veil. 
Smokers are little more than tin cans with hinged 
lids and a bellows attachment which, when squeezed, 
fans previously ignited material inside the can and 
sends smoke out of the nose. Burlap or punky wood 
—anything tending to smoke and smolder—make 
good fuel. Smokers are useful auxiliaries, and it 
is the greatest comfort to have one near in time of 
stress. A quiet puff of smoke blown into the hive 
entrance and another directed under the cover as 
it is being pried up, will drive away the guards and 
send them down into the hive where they will not 
be crushed or in the way. 
A good big colony of sixty thousand bees means 
a hive full to overflowing. Even though bred of 
gentle strain, they naturally scurry to see what is 
going on when the interior of their dwelling is sud¬ 
denly opened to full daylight. On finding the inter- 
