How to use smoke to get rid of honeybees

The idea behind smoking bees out is quite a simple one. It is basically where someone creates a fire or smoky fire from which the smoke is used to discourage or push the bees away from where they are thinking they will be setting up a colony within a building. Smoking bees can therefore be used for swarm removal but sometimes it is used when on bees in a void space in a building.

We don’t recommend smoking bees out of a void space because the risks involved are too great. We know beekeepers and homeowners who have tried to smoke bees out. Sometimes this has been effective but often that only ever works if the bees have been in a property for a short time, within the first 24-hour period before they start to attempt to make honeycomb. The minute they start making honeycomb, smoking bees out is quite ineffective because the smoke doesn’t get around the colony properly. Even if the bees move off the comb they have started to make their home, they often just move back in when the smoke goes away.

When you use smoke you are also obviously using fire to create smoke and fires can be risky. If you have bees in your chimney, the last thing you want to do is light a fire underneath them to smoke them out. The comb is flammable and the bees can swarm into the house.

There is a story online where a beekeeper tried to smoke bees out of a chimney of a thatched house and accidentally set the thatch alight. We obviously wouldn’t recommend this route.