I agree with Randy's observations.  Many people over smoke their bees.  Too much smoke, and the bees get agitated.  It's the difference between a warning that a fire's in the area - be prepared, to the flames are at the door.  Over-smoking also has a longer-term effect on behavior - it  may even cause them to reduce foraging for the rest of the day.

Our  bi-directional counters that counted the passage of virtually every bee in and out - we verified this with video; show that bees will respond to a human being smoking a cigarette in front of the hive.  We once had a chain smoker, we could follow his path through the beeyard as he paused in beside each hive to look at foraging AND take a puff or two ( he knew not to stand in flight path - that the counters would pick that up, so he'd stand near, but off to the side of the front. Did depend on direction of wind on any given day, but if wind was blowing from him toward hives, we'd find small blips in the bee flight activity; could trace his path through the beeyard.

Too biggest groups of over-smoking bees - novices afraid of bees or given poor mentoring, and multi-generation commercial who were taught - got to get job done fast, use more smoke.  Slow down just a bit, less smoke, wait a moment for it to take effect, and you'll gain the time back by less 'fighting of bees', less chaos in hive, easier to see what's going on, etc.

As Randy said, there are times and colonies that you have to use more smoke, but for general working of colonies, back it down.  

Both our counters and infrared cameras show that proper use of smoke has a shorter effect on foraging and thermoregulation inside the hive than over smoking - minutes versus hours residual behavioral alterations.  However, working without smoke, unless the colony is very docile and the beekeeper gentle always has a longer residual effect on altered behavior.
 


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