1) If you heat up an empty (non-fueled) bee smoker in a fire source (say, you craft a new bee smoker in your forge, then take it out), when it's hot enough, it indicates:
"bee smoker (smoking), iron"
But because there is no fuel in the smoker, it doesn't actually work when you interact with an active beehive. You still get stung. This comes up from time to time in CA HELP, as the "(smoking)" text is interpreted to mean it's working.
Suggested fix is perhaps auto-snuffing an un-fueled bee smoker when it leaves a heat source.
2) There were unconfirmed reports of similar problems with a bee smoker that is laying on a ground tile, however I have been unable to reproduce this.