The hardest part of being a beekeeper is lighting a smoker (what’s a smoker?) and keeping it lit. If you can learn to do that successfully, then everything else will seem easy. I have finally found a fuel that is safe for bees and easy to light and stoke.
There are a lot of fuels that are not safe for bees:
- paper with plasticized coatings, glue, binders or inks
- treated, painted, or finished wood chips
- manmade fibers or natural fibers with artificial colorants
- cutting clean wood with a chain saw will taint the wood chips with chain oil
I would not want that stuff in my food. I certainly don’t want it in my hive or my honey.
I’ve tried commercial smoker fuel: they resemble pellets of compressed cotton lint. But I never could get them lit.
The fuel I’ve used most often is pine needles. We have a lot of them in the South and they work pretty well. But there is a knack to lighting a fist full of needles into a blazing inferno and – just before your seared flesh forms white blisters – you plunge the 6″ diameter ball of fire into the bottom of a 4″ diameter smoker and then you pump the smoker furiously with one hand – hoping to keep the now smoldering needles from going out while you flail the other, now empty but still red hand in the air – hoping it will go out. Why worry about bee stings when we have to light smokers, eh?
I read a blog that claimed that burlap layered with brown corrugated cardboard and rolled into a tube was a good fuel. I had a hard time lighting it but it did last a long time. It would probably work better in a less humid environment but assembling it was way too much work.
Eric Nitsch of Westfield, MA claimed, in the August 2010 issue of Bee Culture, that wood chips make the best smoker fuel. So I made a pile of wood chips from my wood shop planer. I selected a clean pine board and ran it through my planer for about 2 minutes. I put the wood chips into a plastic airtight container to keep them dry. In the smoker, it lights like a champ (with a long neck butane lighter) and smolders for a good while. The smoke is cool and dense. It will appear to go out but pump the bellows and it comes back to life. And after 20 minutes or so, you can drop some fresh chips into the smoker and it comes alive for another 20 minutes.
Staghorn Sumac
You do not want to use dusty, painted or treated wood. You probably don’t want to use a highly acidic (tannin) wood like oak. I would also stay away from exotic woods. Pine is a softwood high in pitch – that is why it lights easily. Pine chips are my BFF – Best Fuel Forever.
If you want it to light, it must be dry. I’ve discovered that pine needles picked up off the dry ground do not light as well as pine needles (from the same tree), that have been allowed to dry out in my garage. Wood absorbs humidity from the air and air near the ground is humid so keep your tinder in a place where it can dry out.
I’ve heard that black walnut chips or dried sumac flower heads have a narcotic effect on bees. Does anybody have any experience in that department?
What are your experiences with smoker fuel?
December 31, 2010 at 7:55 am
One of the traditional winter chores of beekeepers was rendering wax from old and broken frames. This was done with steam and you placed the old wax in burlap bags. The burlap caught slum gum and the wax would run out to be captured and sold. What remained after the process was the very best of smoker fuel. The smoke had the smell of wax and the burlap was almost impossible to put out.
pine wood products contains large quantities of tar which I suspect is not so good for the tracheal tubes of honeybees although it certainly smells nice to us aliens.
December 27, 2010 at 12:24 am
I have used sumac combs for many years. I don’t see any difference from other smoker fuels with the bees. I usually start the smoker with the loose cotton fiber now available from various supply houses (Dadant is the cheapest). This starts easily and burns well, but doesn’t last long. It is ideal for one or two hives, but if I need more time I add the sumac flower heads and they usually light from the cotton fluff. If you need more time, you can just add more as you need them. If I am finishing up and don’t need much more time, I stuff a handful of pine needles in the smoker. They work great for a large volume of cool smoke, but don’t last long.
If you want to use sumac, collect the flower heads in the fall while they are still red. Don’t wait until spring when they are grey. You can use them immediately, but they will keep for a year or more.
November 18, 2010 at 12:53 pm
I’ve heard that black walnut chips or dried sumac flower heads have a narcotic effect on bees. Does anybody have any experience in that department?
Several members of the Central Oklahoma Beekeepers claim that sumac has a calming effect on the bees and use it on a regular basis. I have collected some and will try it next years during the swarm season, I run across several Africanized swarms each year. If it will calm them down I will work on anything.
November 16, 2010 at 6:53 am
I like pine needles best, but they’re from a certain kind of tree that people plant around here (Philadelphia). The needles are long and skinny and they light immediately when dry. I’ve never tried to light them in my hand! That sounds CRAZY! I put a few in the bottom of the smoker, light with a long neck lighter, pump a few times then add more until the smoker is packed (not too tight). Sometimes I have to repeat but generally I get plentiful smoke that lasts for an hour or so and doesn’t go out. It has to be those skinny pine needles though. The heavier ones don’t work.
November 12, 2010 at 2:36 pm
I’ve found the waxed paper that Ritz crackers come in to be a good “starter”. A few twigs and some peanut shells typically fill out my smoker.