Howard McEwen

Sometimes you have good beekeeping experierince. Sometimes they just suck. Last night’s check was really good. I was in a good mood, the bees seemed happy. I got myself into the Zen state that I’ve read about and achieved a few times but not nearly as much as I’d like. It’s been about three weeks [...]

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So last Sunday Beta Hive swarmed. It was a fun, slightly nerve-racking experience but the thought of handling thousands of bees has become somewhat common to me now. That’s cool but also a warning. I popped that Beta Hive swarm into a small box colony and put them up near Alpha Hive to get oriented [...]

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I’m in a draw in my continuing battle to get straight comb in Beta and Gamma Hives. Some comb in Beta collapsed. This doesn’t bother the bees. It’s full of comb and honey where I could see because it was covered in honey bees so there was no taking it out. They were building some [...]

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For my birthday, my dad bought me a new smoker and hive tool. That was nice. Alicia bought me this book by Christy Hemenway who has helped me quite a bit. But the hives: The baffle boards I thought that would help me straighten out all the cross-combing did just the opposite. There’s a good [...]

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It’s a learning process, I tell myself. The fact that I’m keeping bees using a different paradigm, equipment and attitude from almost all other beekeepers makes it a very long learning process. Alpha Hive died over the winter. I’ve divided up the hive structure into three baited traps. I have to go up a lure [...]

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Last I looked, Beta and Gamma Hives are okay. But Alpha Hive, my first hive, is dead. It was more emotional that I  expected. They’re just bugs, right? But they’re bugs I took care of for a few years. I knew this would be an issue. They swarmed a few times last spring and deleted [...]

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I winterized the hives on Sunday. This basically means I built some new roofs and put some insulation under them. The bees use their bodies and movement to keep the hive at about 95 degrees (F) even in the dead of winter by forming a clump with their queen at the center. Questions include: Will [...]

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Back on Sunday I stuck a container of 2:1 sugar solution into Beta Hive. They’d of course drained the one I had already tossed in there a week + ago. I drove up to Beta Hive. They’d emptied the two containers I’d put in there so I tossed in two more of the 2:1 solution. [...]

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So I put two more containers into Alpha Hive last night. That makes six. It’s a solution of 1 part sugar to 1 part water. Reading around today I should be using 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. Sugar is sugar right? Well, not really but in this example, yes. The bees pick up [...]

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On Sunday (three days ago) I went up to check on Alpha Hive. I had put in two 3/4 full containers (the plastic rectangular deals that luncheon meats come in) and both were bone dry. I put three more in. Two were full while one just had a bit of excess. I did put some [...]

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