Opening a hive disturbs it: guard bees release alarm pheromone that recruits nearby bees into a defensive state. Smoke masks that signal — but only within a narrow working range. Click the smoker (or "Puff") every few seconds to keep the colony calm through the whole inspection.
How it works ▾A is colony alarm level, driven up by the disturbance of the open hive (D₀) and decayed both naturally (k) and by smoke masking, which scales with current smoke concentration S. S itself decays exponentially between puffs.
Too little smoke → A climbs toward its unmasked ceiling and stings become likely. Sustained heavy smoke pushes a separate panic buildup that scatters bees off the frames instead of calming them — the real "over-smoked" failure mode.