bees and smoke from wood burning stoves

[Bee1]

Hello All,

I realize the bees are sensitive to smoke and it makes them docile and pack up etc.. My question is how sensitive are they? 

We heat with a wood burning stove and the smoke, depending on the day, wafts around the yard.  Is this going to alarm the bees?  The bees are only a handful of paces from the house. 

Bee1

[Shizzell]

I figure that bees are like humans. They get used to smells. If someone has a house that smells like bananas, after a while sitting in the house, you can hardly smell it anymore. I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you notice behavior that is alarming. (Like no brood production with queen, swarming without notice of other signs, building of comb is very slow)

My two cents.

Jake

[acbs]

Bee1

We have hives in our yard where we heat with wood and others not near any heat.  I've never noticed any differences or negative effects.  We rarely use a smoker, so I would think if there was going to be a problem with smoke, ours would be affected. 
Chances are, when it's cold enough to have the stoves smokin', the entrances are restricted so there would be less chance of them being bothered anyway.
This has been our experience.

Arvin & Colleen

[Jerrymac]

I took some feral bees out of the wall of a building used for smoking meat. The honey actually had a hickory flavor to it.

[Michael Bush]

I had a wood stove and bees in the backyard for years. I never noticed any problems.

[Sean Kelly]

We just burned a huge brush pile in our back yard and the bees could of cared less.  We heat with a pellet stove, but I guess that doesn't put out much smoke.
Plus, summer is almost here.  Wont be long until you shut the old wood stove down for a few months.   :)

Sean Kelly