Bees

Everything I know about bees I learned from my grandpa. He kept two bee hives, which benefitted his fruit crops, plus provided honey to the local markets.

The device I’m holding is a bee smoker; a canister filled with smoldering burlap. The smoke is dispensed with a small bellows attached to the canister. Before doing hive maintenance or honey harvesting, you blanket the area around the hives with smoke.

When honey bees become alarmed (usually in response to a perceived threat to the hive) they emit strong-smelling pheromones that stimulate an alarm response in other bees, which in turn produce similar pheromones, so that soon all the bees are in a state of alarm, and ready to attack anything that appears to be an intruder. Smoke acts by interfering with the bees’ sense of smell, so that they can no longer detect low concentrations of the pheromones.