I had my first stressful hive inspection today. The frames looked awesome. They are all filled in and there were obviously a large number of new bees since the last inspection. The honey super I placed last week was full of bees working in there. The stress came in when my smoker ran out of cotten fiber quicker than I expected and I did not bring more with me. So, they got pretty annoyed with me before I finished looking over the last four frames. They were climbing everywhere, including all over me! 
Lesson learned. I will not be without more smoker fuel in the future. Other than that, they seem to be doing great. No out of place comb this time. I was very surprised. So many bees though. Wow.
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Hi Keith, well done with your first inspection. Just a tip about your smoker fuel. I find that there is always something nearby that can be used in a smoker to make smoke, old grass clippings, twigs, bits of bark, dry leaves, cardboard. Unless it’s been raining hard & everything is sopping wet.
Ps, one way to stop your smoker from burning fuel too fast is to reduce the opening a bit, especially when it’s brand new. After a while a buildup of tar will achieve that for you.
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Thank you. I will remember that in the future. I thought we had to use only certain fuels on bees. The hive is near a tree line so I could likely find something nearby next time.
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Just about any plant material is fine. Never use synthetic textiles (polyester, nylon etc.) from old t-shirts. Pure cotton is fine. I use burlap to start the smoker, then put wood pellets on top (Mann Lake). It is very easy to load the smoker with enough fuel for well over an hour, using those two fuels. By adding more, I have kept a smoker going for 3-4 hours when I had 3 hives with a lot of intervention needed. 
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