Leave Your Bee Smoker at Home:
Why would you want an alternative to smoking your bees? Do you hate packing your smoker around? Would you rather leave your smoker at home? Are you tired of smelling like smoke? Forget to bring any fuel or matches with you when you headed out to inspect your hives. Or are you just tired of fighting to light and keep your smoker lit? There is another way to calm your bees.
An Alternative to Smoking Your Bees
There are probably as many opinions on beekeeping as there are beekeepers. A couple of years ago, I began to switch from using my smoker on a regular basis to using a spray bottle. In this bottle,I use 1:1 syrup with a little Honey-B-Healthy added in. So why did I switch? Initially, it was for purely practical reasons. A couple of places that I keep my hives can have a high risk of fire due to the amount of dry grass and timber nearby. A hot smoker and dry grass do not mix well. Then there is the problem of what to do with a hot smoker and a smoldering fire in it when you are done inspecting your hives. The main choices are:
- to put the smoker out with water which makes a mess in the smoker
- try to smother the fire by closing off the air source and is not too practical with most smokers
- or dump out the hot burning material which could lead to the risk of starting a fire
All three have their benefits and drawbacks.
You may or may not have an easy access to water. If you do, then you have the mess of wet partly burned fuel and dripping water from your smoker. Smothering the fire may be successful, but if you are like me, you want to toss that smoker into your car and head off to the next task. At best this will lead to a smokey smelling vehicle. At worst it may mean a visit from your local fire department and maybe your insurance adjuster. Last but not least dumping out the burning material to extinguish it. This can work very well or if it is late July it could go very bad. The smallest of escaping sparks could potentially cause disaster. Once again you may get that friendly visit from the local fire department.
Now please do not think I am against smokers, they do have their place in beekeeping. I just feel the good ‘ole spray bottle can be easier to use and less of a headache. Just about any spray bottle will do the job, but I like the kind typically used for cleaners. I would not recommend reusing a spray bottle that had any chemicals in it before. It is definitely worth buying a new one.
Go to your local hardware or grocery store and pick up a brand new one. You can find a high-quality one for around $5 to $7 dollars. I would not go too cheap though, you are buying a tool. A tool that will get plenty of use and you want to last. Another tip is to label your bottle “Bee Syrup” to avoid using the bottle for anything else. So now you have your spray bottle, what to do next.
The Alternative “Fuel”
To make this work you will need some sugar syrup. I like to use a 1:1 or 3/4:1 sugar to water ratio. I find these ratios work well in my spray bottles. They spray easily and give a fine droplet size. While there is nothing wrong with using the straight syrup, I like to add a little Honey-B-Healthy (find out how to make our own version here) to the syrup. Just fill your bottle with the syrup/Honey-B-Healthy mixture and you are ready for your hive inspections. Simply spray a little of the syrup on the bees as you open up your hives and they should stay relatively calm. I have found that this works really well during inspections. Especially during times that I want to reduce the disturbance of the bees. In my experience, I have also found that it seems to work a little longer than smoke.
One Word of Caution
One thing to be aware of is the outside temperature when using this method. If it is too cold or going to get cold overnight, it is a good idea to limit the use of the spray or maybe not even use it. Wet bees exposed to the cold can easily die, which is not our end goal. A trick I’ve used when temps are not going to be ideal after my inspections are to spray just a little syrup on the top of the frame bars. Just enough to give them a little smell of the Honey-B-Healthy and something to distract the girls coming to check out why the lid is off.
I will continue to use my bee smoker when I really need it and I hope you are not afraid to as well. But for those times that you need a quick and possibly less disturbing alternative to smoke, you may want to try the simple spray bottle with sugar syrup. Let us know if you have any other tips or tricks to use in place of a smoker or even maybe some using a smoker.
