Idaho Honey Bee

The smoker is a wonderful piece of equipment, that when used judiciously, will help you manage the temperament of sometimes otherwise testy bees. You will want to give them a puff now and then as you work through the hive.

As you do, they cluster on the frames and begin to gorge upon the uncapped honey. You are able to remove frames, look for the queen, and observe what is going on inside the hive. As the smoke wears off, and the bees line up on the top bars and look at you with evil intentions, another puff sends them below, and reduces how many fly out of the hive to protect it.       

Yes, the smoker is your best friend…. right up until it goes out.

You fill the thing with fuel, put a match to it, puff like mad, and it is working just fine. You lift a hive top, and give them a puff, and set it down and turn away. Every time you glance back, it billows thick abundant smoke, so you proceed to remove the top box, and reach back for the smoker to give them another puff, and there it is……..dead out. You desperately pump it, trying to bring it back life…..to no avail.

This seemed to be how I spent a good share of my beekeeping time, puffing a dead smoker. I have used a variety of fuels, paper, pine needles, rotted wood, cotton balls, cow pies, mother in-law, you name it, and with varying results, but it seemed like when I most needed it, I was pumping a dead smoker.

I have shown many a newbee how to light a smoker, you know, start with the fine stuff like a bonfire, and add courser fuel as you go along, no problem, plenty of smoke, and you have to dump it out, stomp on it, , and go get some water when you are done to get it out, but work alone in an isolated hillside with the clouds rolling in while you are on your last hive of the day, with no assistant to help, and you will start to think the fairies came out and stuck a cork in it when you were looking at brood on combs. 

A poor memory is your enemy also. I once offered to treat a friend’s hive for mites while he was traveling abroad. I arrived at the hive already to go, except for not having a match. The folks whose place he had located it at were also gone, and it was in an isolated spot. It was fall, and the bees were a bit testy to say the least.

Separating a hive to put Hopgard between the boxes at crotch level on a September day without smoke is not a good idea. I now have matches in the glove box, ash tray, the pockets of my bee suit, you name it. My memory is no better but I am better prepared.

 My current favorite smoker fuel is burlap strips rolled up like a newspaper, and lit with a torch (which works much better then a match) before stuffing it in the smoker and pumping the billows. Once it is burning good, I throw a handful of pine chip pet bedding on top which changes it from a flame thrower, to the producer of rich cool smoke. It’s a big improvement over the past. Today’s coffee roasters often have treatment free bags for the asking, and pet bedding is cheap. In the perfect world of my day dreams, the bees are very cheerful, going about their business on a warm spring day. A smoker is not really needed. Then I awake from my dream and bees are quite irritated, and I reach back for the smoker……and darn if it didn’t go out.