Bee Smoker Pellets Review and Comparison 

YW. I'm glad you found it helpful.

Yeah. Basically, what I learned from making this video is that these things cost $10 for a small pack of them, and they don't perform any better that normal smoker fuel you get for free. Or in my case, my smoker fuel is very inexpensive. I STILL have my pet bedding and I'm still using it and I think it costed me less than $5.

I probably got the same kit as you, the dang things wouldn't even light up, so they are rotting somewhere in the bottom of a random box lol. I just use dry lawn clippings from my lawn, smokes great and it's free

I'm glad you found it helpful. That's the only goal I have in every video I made is to provide something of value to my viewers.

And I just saw at Wal Mart that they are selling big bails of hamster bedding. So, it's dirt cheap and will last you a long time, as long as you keep your pine shaving in a place where they won't get damp.

I'm glad it helped. I was curious why they cost so much and wondered how they work. But, unfortunately, all they are is typical smoker fuel rolled up in paper. They burn just like wood shavings or cypress needles.

@@donnypodcast figure I will just stick with lawn clipping, hay and pine needles. Free and seem like the way to go.

Yeah. I figured that for the price, one of them should last a half hour, but all they seem to be is just regular smoker fuel that lasts just as long as anything else would if you put the same amount in. So, for me, it's hard to spend $10 for what I got out of it.

Good to know.

I thought the same! Smells like pot for sure

In this video, I only used 2 small handfuls of pine shavings and it still lasted beyond 20 minutes. When I was really out doing maintenance on the hive, I would pack the smoker about the same way with one difference: I would keep adding pine shaving until they are rounded above the top of the can. Then I'd puff it and let it reduce a little and add one more handful of shavings. Then, I'd puff it till thick, rich, white smoke comes out, put my small piece of newspaper in the cone, and that smoker will last 45 minutes while I'm working on the hive and I always have to sit it in the fireplace and let it burn out. Sometimes I'd even open the top and puff it to speed up the burn. Packing my smoker this way, I've went to a beekeeping club and my smoker stayed lit the entire 2-hour period every time I was out there.

It still cakes up over time. It even gets to the point where it's hard to clamp the lid down fully. I guess it just looks clean on the days I've been shooting videos. All I used for fuel is a little newspaper and some pine shavings. Not sure if that prevents soot.

LOL! That's hilarious!

Not sure if it would work with ground bees, but for honeybees, they use Bee-Go or similar chemicals after removing a hive from someone's house. These chemicals are said to drive bees away from an area and even prevent them from coming back. One caution is that ground bees are native bees to the US and are threatened by many of the same things that hurt honeybees, such as neonicotinoids. That said, I personally wouldn't want to disturb any ground bees. Smoke is used in beekeeping to move bees away from an area temporarily, interfere with any attack pheromones, and some say it drives them to go into their honey stores and gorge on honey, causing them to be extremely docile. I'm not sure how any of this would work for ground bees, which are not social. So, you wouldn't really have attack pheromones being emitted by other bees in the colony, since the colony doesn't exist; most ground bees are solitary. Since smoke only causes bees to move away from an area for a brief time, maybe less than 30 seconds, it definitely won't provide you with any lasting effects, in the first place. Also, since I don't know much about ground bees, my little knowledge of honeybees may not apply accurately to this question. One thing I have read is that since ground bees are solitary, they are least likely to sting you. As unlikely as it is for a honeybee to sting you, it is far less likely that ground bees would sting. In short, I think trying to use smoke to get rid of ground bees would be a waste of time.

I've seen something like that on RU-vid. I wonder how well that works. I figured that the moment attack pheromones started being released you might by viscously attacked by hundreds of bees. Does the sugar water prevent aggression in the event of attack pheromones being released?

They used the term "smoke bombs" in the description, and being that they're so expensive for so little smoker fuel, I was thinking there has to be more to it. But, I guess they're just conveniently packaged smoker fuel that makes lighting a smoker mess free.