How Does Smoke Affect Honey Bees?

Smoke doesn’t hurt or kill honey bees—it calms them so beekeepers can safely inspect the hive. It masks the bees’ sense of smell so they can’t pass intruder alarm pheromones to one another, and it triggers a fire-survival response that makes them gorge on honey. The bees recover their normal pheromone sensitivity within roughly 10 to 20 minutes after the smoke clears.

Who doesn’t love the warm, sweet sundrops stored in jars? Honey is one of the only healthy foods that tastes heavenly.

But have you ever wondered how beekeepers steal this ambrosia from the stingy (pun intended) clutches of honey bees?

To protect their honey, a valuable treasure, a small class of worker bees guards the bee colony like bouncers. Approach the hive, and the guard bees will sound the alarm, recruiting bees who hum and sting furiously at you to defend their home, even if it means sacrificing their lives.

Yes, honey bee workers die after stinging a mammal—their barbed stinger tears free from the abdomen. (Queens have smooth stingers and can sting repeatedly, drones can’t sting at all, and most other bees, like bumblebees, survive stinging just fine.)

This is why beekeepers use a special technique to protect themselves from the bees as they tend to the hive or harvest honey: they pass the smoke through the hive.

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Smoking Bees: An Ancient Practice

Beekeepers use a bee incense device designed to produce smoke by smoldering various fuels, using pine needles, wood shavings, paper egg cartons, pellets, rotten wood, dried cow manure, and so on.

Before this newfangled bee smoker was invented, early humans had already figured out that smoke pacified bees. Ancient Egyptian artwork dating back nearly 4,500 years appears to show beekeepers using smoking pots near beehives.

In remote hills of Nepal, beekeepers use smoke to collect psychotropic honey from dangerously located colonies hanging on the sides of cliffs.

In 1873, American beekeeper Moses Quinby invented the modern bee smoker—a tin burner with a bellows attached to puff air through smoldering fuel. Quinby never patented the design; a few years later, Tracy F. Bingham refined it into the shape beekeepers still use today.

Due to advances in science and research and the wisdom gained from them, experts believe that the smoke pacifies the bees in two ways: it impedes their sense of smell and triggers their survival response.

How Does Smoke Affect The Bees?

Suppresses The Pheromone

The sense of smell is how bees communicate with one another. Whenever guard bees detect danger, they release an alarm pheromone—principally isopentyl acetate (also called isoamyl acetate)—from glands near the sting. A pheromone is a substance secreted by an animal that causes a specific reaction in another individual of the same species. A second compound, 2-heptanone, was long lumped in as an alarm pheromone, but a 2012 study by Papachristoforou and colleagues showed it’s actually released from the mandibular glands during a bite and acts as a fast local anesthetic on small pests like Varroa mites and wax moth larvae.

Isopentyl acetate triggers an alarm response in the hive, readying defenders to stage an attack against the intruder. Beekeepers report a distinctive smell when they’ve been stung—isopentyl acetate happens to be the same ester that gives ripe bananas their scent, which is why old-school beekeepers warn against eating bananas near the hive.

The smoke masks the smell of the secreted pheromones and prevents other bees from being alerted to an intrusion. (Visscher and colleagues found smoke depresses bees’ olfaction in general, not just their response to alarm pheromones—but the alarm-signal disruption is what matters for the beekeeper.)

Creates The Illusion Of A Forest Fire

Another explanation for the calming effect is that bees interpret smoke as a sign of a forest fire and switch into survival mode.

In response, they gorge themselves on honey. The older idea was that they were stocking up to abscond and build a new home elsewhere—but this has been challenged, since a gravid queen can’t easily fly off and colonies with brood rarely abscond. Research on wild Cape honey bees in fire-prone fynbos (Tribe et al., 2017) suggests instead that the gorging builds a survival reserve to outlast the post-fire forage shortage, while propolis “firewalls” lining the nest cavity help protect the colony in place. Either way, it’s a sensible investment: it takes roughly 6 to 8 pounds of honey for bees to make a single pound of wax, so a full crop is precious.

With the bees busy stuffing themselves, the beekeeper can inspect the hive or collect honey.

Now, let’s look at the technical details of the bee smoker and try to understand how it works to calm the bees.

The Design Of A Bee Smoker

The design of the modern-day bee smoker is simple. The smoker can come with a bellow attached on the side and a spout on top to direct the smoke precisely.

Smoking Fuel

To get the smoke started, you need two things: a starter and fuel.

As the name implies, the starter is any material that catches fire quickly and will remain burning long enough till you add fuel. Newspapers, cardboard strips, or pine cones can be used as starters.

To get the bee smoker going, you light up the starter and put it inside the can of the bee smoker, over which kindling would be stuffed.

Some beekeepers may only use fuel to start the smoke, but this requires more skill.

For the fuel, you’ll need small, thin pieces of an object that lights easily and remains lit for an extended time. Pine needles work well for this purpose. Other alternatives are wood shavings, dried cow manure, hamster bedding, dried shredded leaves, and laundry lint. You should avoid using chemical-based fuel, as these chemicals can mix in the smoke. The chemicals can be toxic, and you don’t want your bees or yourself to inhale toxic smoke during this delicate process.

How Bee Smokers Work

The functioning of a bee smoker is quite simple. First, you take a starter, such as a piece of newspaper, crumple it, and light it. You throw this ignited starter into the can. Now, you take a handful of burning fuel, like wood shavings, and stuff it over the burning starter in the can.

Then, you pump the bellows to push oxygen into the burning starter. As you pump, you see smoke coming out of the spout.

When you tip more “fuel” into the canister and pump the bellows, you will hear a typical woof-woof sound when the fuel ignition starts burning well.

Be careful how you package the fuel. If you push it too far down, it can obstruct the airflow from the bellows, making it difficult to keep your bee smoker running and smoking for long.

Does The Smoke Calm The Bees? And Is It Safe For The Bees?

Beekeepers have used this technique for generations since it doesn’t have long-term side effects on the bees’ health. The smoker is safe for the bees, and they regain their pheromone sensitivity roughly 10 to 20 minutes after the smoke dissipates. In wildfire-prone regions, some beekeepers now also use flame-free alternatives—diluted liquid smoke sprays, sugar-water mists, or commercial smokeless calming products such as Apimil that masks alarm pheromones with essential-oil compounds.

The smoke calms the bees, and they become easier to work with. This reduces the likelihood that the beekeeper may crush a bee, which would agitate the bees.

Precautions When Using A Bee Smoker

However, beekeepers do have to be careful with the tools they use for smoking.

They must try to keep the spout at least five inches away from the bees while smoking. Very hot smoke or a stray flame can singe a bee’s wings and damage the membrane—and although chitin doesn’t actually melt at smoker temperatures, the bees themselves die from sustained heat above roughly 45–50 °C.

Most beekeepers say it is better to smoke less than more. Excessive smoking can contaminate the honey and wax. Once again, avoid any chemical ignition material, as it would be toxic for bees and beekeepers. This includes wood with paint on it.

The smoker can get hot. Although modern bee smokers are equipped with a protective wire closure around the can, it is still a bit risky as fingers can slip through the cage and come into contact with the very hot can, leading to burns. Professional beekeepers hold the smoker by the bellows or attach a hook to hold the smoker.

Also, the beekeeper needs to be wary about keeping the smoker on any surface. Since the bottom is hot, the material beneath the smoker could melt or burn. Also, avoid placing the smoker on sand or debris as the hot air passing from the bellows could pull them towards the can. This, in turn, could clog the smoker.

Careful application of a bee smoker while adhering to all these precautions can greatly facilitate the honey harvest process.

So, don’t feel too guilty next time you open the honey jar. No bees have been harmed to make it!

That being said, you’ve just stolen a bunch of their food by essentially knocking them out and force-feeding them their own honey.