Thoughts from the apiary
Smokers. I struggle deeply with this aspect of beekeeping. I rely on JJ for this completely and I really shouldn’t!
Fire and I have a serious love hate relationship. I am not ashamed to admit I am scared of fire. I love the heat it gives off but hate that it can also be a hazard. It should be simple, start a small fire in your smoker and then add fuel so that it just smolders. For me that never works! Maybe if I only had one or two hives I could make it last but when there is more than three and by the time I get into the second one I am already dealing with trying to restart the dang thing. Shameful! Lol JK I just don’t have the patience to get it started well enough to keep going.
A few points to consider about your smokers.
Fuel used in it. Natural items without chemicals, something that will smolder and something easy to work with. It’s easier in the summer and fall to just grab pine needles, pine cones, leaves, small twigs, dry grass, etc. if you are ambitious and want to keep it on hand take some time and a 5 gallon bucket and plan ahead to store for wet days, spring and winter. If not you can get cotton muslin, burlap, wood pellets and such. It’s very important to make sure your smoke is cool. You don’t want to blow hot smoke on the hives as obviously it can harm your bees.
A common thought and one I used to have was smoke drove the bees to the honey but in reality
smoking all comes back to the pheromones in your hive. Smoke covers the scent of the pheromones given off at any given time by the bees both in your hive and out. Bees do move away from the smoke so if you smoke the front entrance of the hive they retreat into the entrance and the same with smoking into your hive box as you open it. It settles down the alert scent given off by the whole hive when you interrupt their work.
Each hive has a unique base pheromone based on the queen and her mood, beyond that worker bees give off alarm pheromones which call bees back to the hive or up to the top of the hive when they want to regroup. I see this once in a while when I have a hive open for too long. Bees line up at the top of the box and stand at alert and flap their wings excessively without going anywhere. I smoke lightly and it disrupts the alarm so I can safely settle them down and reclose the hive.
You can over smoke them as well. It has been noted that a long disruption with smoke-prolonged smoking or overly heavy smoke-can confuse them to the point they can’t get the base hive scent and may break the flow of your hive. I have gone into my hives this past summer without a smoker. Our bees are gentle and as I was only intending to move boxes and not check frames I thought all would be well. Gentle and calm is great and I was bonding with the bees as I looked them over. However in just one move they decided they did not like the process anymore and I had to scramble carefully to reassemble the hive and close it up. That one sting was enough to have the hive very alert. If I had the smoker a
few puffs where the sting was and a few puffs into the hives box would have made the process a lot happier for me and the bees. It doesn’t control your hive but it does keep the peace when needed.
Stay tuned for the adventures and misadventures of my smoker practice this spring. In the photo you’ll see a few types and sizes of smokers. I have no preference at this time but did notice the domed lid seems to smoke better than the longer tapered smoker. I’d be interested in any feedback from fellow beekeepers on what they use!
Also make note that it’s not feasible to go to several bee yards and keep restarting your smoker so be careful and aware people get nervous seeing smoke coming from the bed of your truck and they will call the fire department if they don’t catch up with you and see it’s only a bee smoker.
