Bee smoker

A bee smoker (usually called simply a smoker or a smokepot) is a device used in beekeeping to calm honey bees. It is designed to generate smoke from the smoldering of various fuels, hence the name. It is commonly designed as a stainless steel cylinder with a lid that narrows to a small gap. The base of the cylinder has another small opening that is adjacent to a bellow nozzle. Pumping of the bellows forces air through the bottom opening. The cylinder may also have a wire frame around to protect hands from burning. Some smokers have a hook on the side allowing the user to hang the device on the side of a beehive for easy access during an inspection or attach it to an ALICE belt when not in use. Long before the invention of the bee smoker, humans had discovered that smoke calmed bees. It is not clear when this practice started but it has been used in various parts of the world where honey is collected in the wild. For example, the indigenous Native Americans burned the common puffball fungus (Lycoperdon spp) to anesthetize the honeybees which inspired application of the smoke as a general anesthetic in 1853. Along the same lines, a camp fire can be started in near proximity to the nest, then a smouldering stick or torch can be brought to the nest to diffuse smoke in the honeybees general vicinity. This technique is still used today in Nepal to collect wild psychotropic honey from cliff colonies. Moses Quinby invented the modern bee smoker with a bellow attached to a tin burner in 1873 in the Mohawk Valley, New York. When combined with a wooden dowel with a handle on one end and the smoking end of a long thin rod on the other end, a short wooden stick on the end of the stick is used to blow air into the metal bowl. As part of his Quaker upbringing and belief, he did not patent any of his inventions (including the smoker) and therefore gave it to the beekeeping community. Tracy F. Bingham of Farwell, Michigan improved and patented on January 20, 1903 (US Patent # US718689A) an improved smoker based on the design of Quinby.