The Bee Smoker: the Beekeeper’s Most Essential Tool

I learned a lesson about the importance of using a bee smoker very early in my beekeeping career.

I was 15 or 16, and so I was not nearly as wise as I am now (OK, that sounds a little highfalutin'. How about: I’m not quite as ignorant now as I was then!).

I had only been keeping bees a short time, but figured that I really knew what I was doing. One day I was out in the back yard doing something unrelated to the bees (probably trying to get out of mowing the yard.)

On a whim, I decided to take a quick peek into one of my hives. I wasn’t wearing any protective equipment, and I didn’t bother to get the bee smoker. I was only going to take a peek!

Well, it was as if those bees were laying in wait for me, with nothing better to do than teach an ignorant kid a lesson. As soon as I pried the lid up enough for a bee to squeeze through - BAM BAM BAM; two stings on the arm and one on the leg! I decided that was enough of a peek.

Actually, several lessons could be derived from that episode of ignorance, but since this is the smoker page, we’ll focus on that. If I’d had a smoker going, it’s very unlikely that I would have been stung at all. And I did heed the lesson the bees delivered that day: I’ve never since opened a hive without a bee smoker puffing away.

How it Works

Smoke, to the best of our knowledge, works in two ways to diminish the defensive response of honey bees:

1) Each worker bee in a hive has a distinct job to perform. One of those jobs is guarding the hive. Guard bees spend their time at full alert, constantly vigilant for any threats to the hive’s security. At any indication of an intruder (that would be you, beekeeper!), they are the first to respond.

And if a guard bee decides that something is wrong, she releases a pheromone that alerts other bees to the situation. The signal “intruder alert!” can spread very rapidly throughout the hive, making hundreds of bees ready to attack.

But smoke wafting through the hive shuts that response down. The smoke masks the alert pheromone, cutting the lines of communication. Because of the smoke, mass confusion reigns, where there otherwise might have been a mass retaliation against the intruder.

2) The second way that smoke works is by setting off an internal fire alarm within each bee. The bees seem to instinctively understand that smoke = fire = possible evacuation. Just as you might grab your wallet or purse on the way out of your burning home, the bees prepare to evacuate by gorging themselves on honey. If they have to abandon their hive, and start anew, they will need all of the honey they can carry for subsistence and for building new comb.

So between the crippled communications and the frantic engorgement upon honey, the bees are considerably less likely to respond to your intrusion into their home. But don’t think of the smoke as an impermeable force field that will totally repel the bees. The smoke is just a tool, which, in combination with utilizing proper techniques and timing when working a hive, will keep the bees defensive response to a minimum.

How to Work it

The first step to using the bee smoker is, obviously, to get it lit with a nice, smoldering burn. What should you use for fuel? Well, if you ask 10 beekeepers that question, you might get 10 different answers. My favorite is “punky” wood: dry, partially rotted wood from a fallen tree or limb.

But you can use about anything that’s convenient and will burn with a slow, smoky smolder. Just take care not to use anything that might have some undesirable chemicals in the smoke. Sawdust or chips from treated wood, for example, would be a bad idea. Also, if you happen to be a tobacco user, do NOT blow tobacco smoke on the bees; it’s poisonous to them.

Use tinder of some sort to start the fire. In my area, dried pine needles are plentiful, and make excellent tinder. Once you have a good flame going with the tinder, start to feed in your smoker fuel, pumping the bellows until the bee smoker is producing a nice, thick smoke.

You don’t want to scorch the bees, so make sure that the smoke isn’t too hot. One trick that will help to cool the smoke is to stuff a wad of green grass into the lid of the smoker before closing it.

Once your smoker is going good, step up to the side of the hive and direct a few puffs of smoke into the entrance. Wait a minute or two, and then crack open the lid and puff in some smoke. Let the lid down, and wait a bit more, and then remove the lid, puffing smoke over the top of the hive as you expose it.

As you work the hive, you’ll periodically add more smoke. With experience, you’ll come to know when it’s time to give the bees more smoke by their behavior. When they start to act more agitated and animated, it’s time for more smoke.

There will be times when the smoke just isn’t having the desired effect, and a retreat will be in order. On such occasions, a professional beekeeper who needs to stay on schedule might just have to fight through it, but you don’t. Close the hive up, and come back on another day when it’ll be less traumatic for both the bees and their keeper.

By the way, take care not to offend Smokey with your bee smoker; don’t start a forest fire!