I’ve never used a smoker at home - I just allow plenty of time, go in calmly and step away for a moment if their pitch rises or if I get any warning flights around the face. Just a personal choice. Certainly in these conditions it’s not worth risking lighting your smoker. Hold off for a few days at the very least. The fires are doing horrendous damage out there.
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(At the office we do use a smoker and no doubt it calms the bees)
Hi Stefan, you did mention the words “common sense”. Common sense should prevail at all times. We should always be super cautious while using a bee smoker. This morning I used my smoker. Nobody would have had a clue I was even using it. I didn’t have large plumes of smoke belching out of it. It just kept going with a bit of dry cow dung. After a couple of puffs, it gave just the right amount of smoke to do the job, without it being obvious. There was a heavy dew on the green grass, nothing in sight that was likely to catch fire. If I was a smoker, there would have been more visible smoke than what came out of my smoker.
Before transporting my smoker, I closed the spout, then put the smoker inside a bee box with a lid on. This eliminates the risk of any smoke coming off the back of my ute on the way home.
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Wow…nice description Peter48 of a perilous situation. Smoke becomes a real downer when you have no alternative but to breathe it in…I hope you guys get some rain.
Thank you Ms.Dawn! I will write that down in my notebook:)`
When Mr. Skeggley said his neighbors will call the fire brigade if they smell his smoker… I thought I must be lighting up mine the wrong way. I only had a puny tiny whiff of a plume coming out of mine.
I use cardboard and needles.
Hi Stefan, you don’t need much smoke to get the bees to do what you want. I don’t use dry cow dung all that often. Just this morning a piece was convenient & it smoldered for quite a while in between uses. Thin pieces of wood will also smolder for quite a while.
The plan you have is a good one. Not that I would encourage you or anyone else to break the law. Especially Mr Skeggley 
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Thank you MrJ.H., you are my new hero!
Tell me about this dry cow of yours. I mean the dung, not the cow.
Where do you get it from… apart of course from the rear end of a cow. Do you buy it online or something? Does it have to be a cow? I only have a cat, will dry cat dung do? Or the kids’ ? I have plenty of that.
I now have this picture in my head, which I can’t get rid of… of a middle aged man chasing bovines with a bee smoker.
You better clarify that for me MrJ.H.
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The injuries were caused by making a bad choice in trying to save some of the gear in my car, in hind sight I was stupid as what I saved could have been replaced. What shocked me was how quickly the inside of the car went up in flames.
Hi Stefan, at my main bee site, sometimes cows are let to graze in the paddocks where my bees are. Cows being cows, they leave lots of droppings which I relish for my vege garden. However due to time constraints, I don’t get to pick them all up. It’s been a few months since the cows were allowed on the side of the road where my bees are. The droppings on the ground are very dry now & make ideal smoker fuel.
I wouldn’t recommend using cat’s poo Mainly because cow poo comes from cows eating grass.
It sounds like what you’re using now is doing the job for you.
cheers
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Can I quote myself? Apparently I can because I just did it.
Anyway. For those not fortunate enough to have cattle roaming their apiary, and want to use Jeff’s method for a safe fire in a smoker, you now can, in this day and age, buy cow excrement on eBay. There are organic versions too for the ultra hippies.
I will be sticking to cardboard and needles though.
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Open the hive slowly and if the bees get too excited then spray onto them. Never had to use this method myself as my bees are in the back garden and smoker always on hand.
Like Freebee said patience and stealth and knowing when to get out of dodge are just as effective.
I love listening to the hive it’s like listening to classical music.
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What you rest your smoker on. It’s base gets really, really hot. And sometimes, when you think it’s out…
Like you I’m on a tinder box. My choice. You can keep your pedicured gardens, I live here because I like the bush. I like the wildlife. I saw a Kings Skink the other day, sunning itself up near the shed. First I’ve seen here, had to look it up to identify.
Pick your day. The smell of smoke on a 25°C day doesn’t have the same ‘cheeses’ factor as a 30°C day. Pick a time. Early enough that the foragers are up and about but not too late.
Sugar water spray doesn’t cut it for me during a dearth. Mind, I’m talking large colony’s of course, nuc colony’s seem to have more patience and less attitude.
I’m hoping to squeeze one more smoking in to do a split this weekend but today’s Bullsbrook fire and with what’s going down, or rather up, over East people are on edge already.
I want people to call in the smell of smoke, the faster the reaction the less the consequence. I trust myself to safely use a smoker on a hot day but I don’t know Joe Bloggs down the road to trust his smoking skills. 
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I’ve had several versions of this:
There is also an old ammo can big enough for the smaller smokers. All of these are almost air tight so the smoker goes out quickly and the smoker is contained in the box. You don’t have to dump the fuel (which could start a fire) because it goes out from lack of O2.
Here in Nebraska, USA the only thing that is ever banned is an “open” fire which a smoker is not. Still at high fire danger (really dry) and really windy I tend to skip the smoker. But that doesn’t happen often. If it happened often I would use some liquid smoke mixed into some water in a spray bottle. It doesn’t work quite as well as smoke, but it works better than nothing.
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At only a hundred dollars U,S., what better Christmas gift for a beekeeper than a Maxant Smoker Buddy
Yea, the stainless steel one is the least practical. I’ve owned a couple of the galvanized ones, the ammo can, and the galvanized small garbage can. For some reason they keep disappearing.
Wow @Peter48 sorry to hear about your injuries, scary stuff.
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Thank you for illuminating me with your wisdom Mr Skeggley. You make valid points.
I’m same as you, no pedicured gardens and here for the bush and wildlife, away from them pesky people.
It must be a good year for those scaly land sausages. Coincidentally, this week I also saw the first ever King’s Skink on my patch in 13 years. I saw them before elsewhere, but never here. I keep a record of things I see. Unfortunately it was being chased by a rather hefty dugite.
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You can keep your dugites Numbatino, I’ll keep the bobtails.
Coincidentally the skink here got chased away by a couple of Maggies.
We had a fire over the road in a quarry a few years back and there were helitankers within 15 minutes. My area has been classified as extreme fire danger, being in close vicinity of parkland, and even new sheds being erected need to be fire rated! And I’m in suburbia (ish)! No doubt it won’t be long before the parkland is razed and estates created as a defence. Again.
I’d struggle living in the flatlands (read badlands 
) and have security with the surrounding houses.
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