Which Bee Smoker for a Beginner? The One Beekeepers Name

Halfway through an inspection, the smoker goes out. You pump the bellows and get a wisp. The bees have noticed. Now you're standing over an open hive with a lighter in one hand and a frame in the other. That isn't how the book said it would go.

If you're new to beekeeping and shopping for a smoker, you've seen the problem. The catalogue and the marketplace listings show dozens of them, all near-identical. Same shape, same wire guard, same bellows, no way to tell which one is the one.

Ask people who've kept bees for years, and the choice comes down to one.

Who makes the best bee smoker?

Two threads in r/Beekeeping asked the question a year apart and got the same answer. One beekeeper wanted two smokers: a step up from their own starter one, and a Christmas present for their dad, who's kept bees a long time. The advice: "If it's a gift, go balls to the wall with a dadant tall."

The other had bought a cheap one and wanted something that would last more than two seasons. One reply was "Dadant 4x10 or nothing", from a beekeeper who works with a row of very old ones.

That's the Dadant tall smoker, from the beekeeping supplier of the same name. It's a stainless steel can ten inches high and four across, with a wire shield around it so you don't grab hot metal. It costs more than the imports. The people recommending it don't think that matters.

The Dadant smoker is the best smoker in the world. Yes, it costs more, but there will never be any buyer's remorse.

u/NumCustosApes, in r/Beekeeping

It isn't one subreddit's taste. David, who writes The Apiarist, a UK beekeeping blog, spent a whole post arguing that there's no such thing as the best smoker fuel. The smoker itself was another matter: "The best smoker is the large Dadant smoker."

The rest of both threads agrees. One owner has no regrets, and someone who's used many still rates the largest model with the heat shield as the best. Another owns two and can't say enough good about them.

What's different about the tall one?

The reasons the regulars give are practical. For starters, the smoke comes out cooler. One beekeeper who moved up from a short smoker says the tall one runs cooler, and likes that a lot.

Their guess at why is the grass. A tall can has room for a loose ball of green grass on top of the fuel, which they never had room for in the short one. The grass catches sparks and cools the smoke, so it doesn't singe the bees' wings.

It runs longer, too. The owner of two Dadants keeps the tall one for a full day's work.

It takes abuse. The beekeeper with the row of old ones has one that sat out in the rain for over a year. It still works like it did out of the box. It's missing the hinge pin, but a nail takes care of that.

The wire shield is the other thing to want. The beekeeper with the cooler smoke doesn't have one and has burnt their fingers on occasion.

Bee smoker sizes: tall or short?

Dadant makes the same smoker in two heights, both with the shield: the ten-inch tall one, and a seven-inch. The Apiarist's line on the pair is that "the small Dadant is pretty good, but the large one is the bee's knees".

The owner of two has one of each: the tall one for working all day, and a seven-inch they found in the road.

The beekeeper who moved up to a tall one can't see any major advantage in a small one apart from cost. On something that lasts years, they say, the cost shouldn't matter much.

If the budget won't stretch to the tall one, the small Dadant is the same build in a shorter can. Nobody in these threads who's used both argues for the small one over the tall.

Do the cheap smokers fail?

Some do, in the stories. It's usually the bellows. The beekeeper who moved up to a Dadant got about three inspections out of their cheap one before the bellows tore at the bottom. The seller sent a free replacement, and they'll see how long that one lasts.

The starter-kit ones get the worst press. The beekeeper with the row of old ones calls them notoriously bad, often made of thinner metal. They had one lose bits of its guard and its top within a season.

Some cheap ones last, though. The reply that said to go all out on a gift also says a cheap marketplace one is fine for yourself, and theirs is still going after years.

Elsewhere in the threads, a cheap one bought second-hand has lasted seven years. Another did eight or nine years of hard work on one new bellows cloth and a soldered lid handle.

One reply splits it in two: the cheap steel lasts forever, and the bellows are another question.

The Dadant isn't the only name that gets a good word. One BetterBee-branded smoker is working well and looking good at two seasons, and another beekeeper would take either the Dadant or BetterBee's premium smoker.

Then there's the cheap smoker that started the second thread. It had come in a starter kit, and one look at the photo told the beekeeper with the row of old ones it was running too hot. By the end of the thread, its owner had decided they'd simply misused it.

Three things to check before you blame the smoker

All three came up in the same threads, from the people recommending the Dadant.

• Put the hearth disk in the bottom, legs down. Every smoker comes with one. In one regular's experience, "no smoker I have ever seen comes with instructions on what to do with it". Bend the tabs down into little legs and set it in the bottom. The air gap under the fuel helps the smoker draft and stay lit. The person who started the second thread had put theirs on top of the fuel.
• Finish with a loose ball of green grass or leaves. Roll it up and set it on the fuel or in the spout before you close the lid, and keep it loose so the smoker can still draw. It catches sparks and cools the smoke.
• Cork the spout when you're done. One beekeeper corks theirs so the fuel stops burning once the work's done. Then it goes out of the weather, with a clean at the end of the season.

The Dadant's disk, by the way, comes fitted tightly enough that its purpose is hard to mistake, according to the beekeeper with the row of old ones. On many other smokers it sits loose and is easily misidentified.

Skip the lookalikes and buy the tall Dadant with the shield. Bend the hearth disk's legs down and seat it before the first light, and keep the starter-kit smoker in the shed as a spare. On a tight budget, the seven-inch is the same smoker, three inches shorter.