Food for thought

[JD]

I just got done reading on Bushfarms web site about bee basics. Particularly about bee's making wax. Full stomach's encourages wax building. My thought, smoking makes them gorge on honey, ie full stomachs. So here's the scenario. You got a package of bee's and install them. Feed them 1:1 sugar water. They start building up their comb. The hive is building up fast. So if a person was to come along and give them smoke every now and then, would they build up the comb's faster? If they got to the point where they were back filling you'd add another super, split the nest between the two boxes to encourgage them to draw out the foundation faster. What do think? Don't hurt to ask. Could it work to build up your honey super comb faster? Just a thought.

[BjornBee]

No.

[manfre]

This seems like it would be about as effective as hitting an employee so they work faster. Every so often you hit them again so they don't slow down.

I'm new to this, but everything I've read states that the smoker simulates a forest fire so the bees gorge on the honey in anticipation of running and rebuilding the hive. Frequent stress is not healthy for anything.

[kathyp]

however....your thought process is logical.  you only need to investigate all of the responses to an action.  in this case, the possible benefit of more wax is less than the known negatives of stress and disturbing the hive.

anyway, as a new beekeeper you will probably be in your hives plenty, and at first, you will probably use lots of smoke.  you can exercise your theory in the name of learning 

[Michael Bush]

>This seems like it would be about as effective as hitting an employee so they work faster. Every so often you hit them again so they don't slow down.

Exactly.    If it worked at all, which I don't think it would.

Actually the "gorging on honey" theory was in Langstroth's books and is generally accepted, but my guess is that smoke works more by interfering with their sense of smell which keeps the alarm from getting raised.  I open a lot of hives with no smoke because I'm looking for queens and find just as many bees gorging on honey as when I use smoke.