For easy entertaining, you can certainly prepare the beans a few hours ahead of time and store in the refrigerator with the bacon in a separate container. It should be saucy enough that the beans won’t absorb too much liquid. However, if it does, you can always add a little more liquid to loosen the sauce. I recommend pulling the beans and bacon from the refrigerator an hour before smoking. This allows everything to come down to room temperature for more even cooking.