Beekeeping: How to Use a Smoker

Video Transcript

"Ok this is the bee smoker. You can't do anything without the bee smoker. When you are looking in a beehive you want them to be thinking of something else besides stinging you. When you light up the smoker, puff a little smoke into the beehive. They think wait a minute house it on fire we have to get ready to leave perhaps. So it gets their mind off of you. To light a smoker, here in Central Florida we use pine needles. It lights up pretty easy, and I will give you a little demonstration on how that works. Pine needles light up pretty easily they work good give off a lot of smoke. One of the problems with pine needles is though, it's a hot fire and they burn up in a hurry so you run out of fuel. What I like to use to help that out is, it's kind of hard to find. Buffalo chip, Buffalo chips are good fuel. Problem with buffalo chips is you can't find them very easy. So you go to a cow pasture and try to find one that works."