Hello all !
New innovation for smoker :
Seems to be interesting, the electronic cigarette technology for bees ! 
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I wondered when something like this would appear on the market and am a bit surprised it has taken so long.
Thanks for the link. 
Inspecting smokeless summertime during a fire ban isnāt much fun.
Iāll be keeping my eye on this.
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As long as you donāt breath itā¦ you could be getting āpopcornā lungā¦
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I quit smoking of 35 years through Vaping. Thank god for it. All the dr prescribed stuff was twice the expense of smoking and to many steps to do. I dosed myself down and through withdrawals easily and without social nagging. The methodology for quitting smoking is different than blowing lungs full of vapor for fun and potentially getting popcorn lungs. Popcorn lungs is from homemade gadgets.
However, I canāt light a bee smoker without a cigar lighter or blowtorch. I would be open to trying the new products.
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the āpopcornā lung issue has been vastly over-rated. It relates to a flavoring (diacetyl) only used in some liquids- and the amount you need to consume to run into an issue is enormous. A man who consumed two packets of microwave popcorn a day for 10 years got popcorn lung- he was in the habit of inhaling the steam whenever he nuked another bagā¦ That flavoring is being used less and less in e-liquid. I doubt very much that it would be used in this āsmokerā as it is a butter flavor and likely would be pointless for use with bees. Itās quite likely that the main ingredient used to create the vapor would be vegetable glycerin and that no flavorings are used.
and just for balance: a regular smoker would have to be a straight out cancer risk- emitting innumerable of cancer causing chemicals? Oddly Nepal has one of the highest lung cancer rates in the world: not from smoking so much as from open fireplaces.
the one thing thatās odd with the indigogo listing is it never actually says if it works as well as smoke? If it does- t really could be a winner. If it doesnātā¦ not so much It should be relatively easy to modify an existing smoker- using an e-cigarette device- to test out if it works or not.
I donāt know what it is in smoke (wood smoke) that causes the bees to react as they do to it. Could be any/many of the thousands of chemicals in it I guess. How this device will work similarly without those chemicals is a mystery at this stage. I would have thought an e-cigarette would work on bees with the liquid used there, because, as a start, it has nicotine in it.
I donāt think the nicotine would be necessary- most of the things we put in our smokers probably donāt have nicotine in them. Also e-cig liquid sold in Australia does not contain nicotine. People import that.
Ecigarettes emit vapor- itās basically the same stuff as is used in fog machines- either propolene glycol and/or vegetable glycerin. These substances are realitively safe for human consumption and are added to many things we consume- like toothpaste. Nictotine and flavorings are added in relatively small quantities and these additives are possibly more harmful. The vapor is really just microscopic droplets of liquid- not smoke at all.
It could be that they are adding something to the base of glycerin that the bees react too (liquid smoke?)- or that they react simply to the glycerin fog as they do to smoke. They are not at all clear on this on the campaign page. It would be easy enough to test if glycerin alone is effective. I could do itā¦ maybe I will?
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Hi Jack, yes I agree. I have asked questions and am awaiting a reply. It is probably some pretty complicated chemistry. I would imagine if you vaporise liquid smoke (such as is already sold for use on bees - at the moment they use a spray bottle) it would probably be toxic to some extent, as it contains many of the chemicals in wood smokeā¦at least that is my understanding.
yes that likely- but quite possibly it would be considerably less toxic than straight out smoke from a smoker as it possibly contains less half burnt particulate matter. It might also be correspondingly less effectiveā¦
from what I understand smoke works on bees by masking their alarm pheremones- and by indicating that a forest fire my be near by. I have read opposing things- some say that the bees are preparing to abandon the hive if they have too- but others say that in the case of a fire they donāt actually abscond but perish? If they are preparing to abscond- why do they become lethargic and re-enter the hive- burrowing down into the frames? I donāt know what the truth isā¦ maybe no-one does?
What I find is that not all smoke is equal. I find the stinkier and more pungent the better for moving the bees on etc. The most effective I find, is monterey pine needles. They are also the most pungent to me and will quickly creosote the lid. Iām sure others will disagree but it is just what I have seen. I think any vapour āsmokeā that doesnāt smell in some way might not work very well, but Iām guessing.
Iāve blown raspberry peach vapor on my bees and nada, it does not phase them, move them in any way. They could care less.
Thatās an interesting bit of anecdotal evidenceā¦ in that campaign video they smoke an entrance and the one bee thatās there doesnāt seem to react much if at allā¦
Iāll do a test- I have some powerful vaporizers 
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I use some type of native pine needle- itās also pungent and creates black tar/creosote on the smoker- which can make it hard to open the smoker at timesā¦
One thing I do now is put a piece of hessian on top of the burning needles- this stops sparks coming out, and keeps the smoke cool.
Hi Jack, there is now a further video on their facebook page showing the effect of the formula on the bees, and a comparison table (on the funding site) between the compounds in the Apisolis and that of a traditional smoker.