The best smoker fuel I know (so far)

 The rain is back- what they now call around here a "river of rain"-which in the old days, like 3 or 4 years ago? - we just called "rain".  Who thinks these things up? It just contributes to the general anxiety that somehow we now get rivers, then we'll get floods of rain, and then, it won't stop raining. 

To celebrate the "river" (as I write, it's sort of a drizzle outside), I prepped for Spring beekeeping by preparing material for my smoker. I have tried, as I am sure every beekeeper eventually does, every smoker fuel there is, and have to say, I only rarely find one that works great.

The measure there is that once lit, if it gets set aside for a time- say, 10 minutes even- its alive and smoking when you pick it up again. Not dead to the world. If you've kept bees awhile, you've known that once-in-awhile hive that goes rogue on you- your guard is down, maybe a zipper on your jacket not tight,or maybe even, stupidly, you don't even have a veil on. And some hive decides it doesn't like what you're doing.

So you reach for your defence- a smoker- and it's dead. A little wisp of ashes puff out when you press the bellows. Bees don't respond at all to ashes- and start stinging.

So- I find it is absolutely nuts to not be fully geared up and protected, no matter how "freindly" one's bees are, and secondly, to have smoke at the ready if truly doing inspections. Which means- a reliable smoke source. Which, I am sure like you (if you keep bees), you are searching for, always, as few are really reliable. Here's my current "go to":

Cut up waxy busted frames. Or rotted ones.  Here this evening I cut 20 or 30-into as short of bits as I could. I set up the chop saw, and just start cutting them down:

And eventually you get a bin of excellent fuel. Waxy, easy to light, let it set for 4 or 5 minutes burning,and it lasts a long time- and is easily refilled. Make the pieces as small as possible- use some newspaper as a base, and drop these on top. I am pretty sure this is the best fuel I've tried so far (though always searching):

And TMI, half my shop, beekeeping central for me (making equipment and fixing it), but also a lot of other projects. An ongoing mess, but a pleasure to work in: