Wildfire smoke is one of the fastest-moving threats a beekeeper can face. Fine particulates and volatile compounds drifting into a hive irritate bees, mask the colony's alarm and recruitment pheromones, and can trigger defensive or absconding behaviour long before flame ever reaches the yard. This scene models a simplified apiary downwind of an approaching fire so you can see how bearing, distance and intensity combine — and how two common contingency measures blunt the impact.
Beekeepers in wildfire-prone regions often pre-stage entrance reducers, wet burlap and evacuation trailers each spring — the same measures modelled here — because a well-prepared apiary can be relocated in under an hour once a fire watch is issued.
A wildfire's smoke plume drifts across a row of beehives; steer the fire's bearing, distance and intensity, then toggle relocation and entrance-sealing to see colony stress rise and fall in real time.
Each hive's smoke exposure scales with fire intensity and falls off with distance along the wind path. Relocating hives behind a windbreak and fitting entrance-reducer boards each independently cut exposure and stress.
Drag the bearing, distance and intensity sliders to move and grow the fire, then flip the relocate and seal-entrance toggles to compare contingency strategies against the live stress readout on each hive.
Smoke exposure disrupts a colony's alarm and Nasonov pheromones, so heavy smoke events can trigger defensive clustering or absconding well before flames are anywhere near the apiary.