Bee Blog — smoke

Smoke has been used to calm bees since prehistoric times. It is not exactly clear when this practice started, but bee-smoking has long been used to help collect honey in the wild. Early uses of smoke being used in beekeeping would probably have been similar to the death-defying antics of Nepalese honey-hunters, which was documented by a photographer on National Geographic recently. Needless to say, it makes modern day beekeeping look very tame! Before we look at the best fuels, it’s important to better understand why smoke is used in beekeeping in the first place. Understanding the “alarm” pheromone It...