Migliaccios look after the honey bees, making increase

  • Published
  • By Raquel March
  • AEDC Public Affairs
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  One honey bee swarm turned into one hive, and then another swarm into a second hive until eventually Joe Migliaccio, an AEDC engineering group manager, and wife Rita had eight hives and thousands of honey bees.

With encouragement from a beekeeping family member, the Migliaccios began a beekeeping hobby that has grown each year since 2016.

“We caught a swarm of bees in our front yard,” Migliaccio said. “It was Sept. 5, 2016. They survived the winter of 2016 to 2017. In the spring of 2017 the one hive swarmed and we caught it. That brought us to two hives.”

A swarm capture of bees is “making increase.” When bees swarm, it’s due to the hive having an abundance of bees and honey so that approximately half of the colony leaves the hive with the queen in search of a new home. Queen cells are left behind in the original colony to produce a new queen. A swarm may collect in a bunch on a branch and are in a docile state.

Migliaccio was prepared to care for the first swarm and with the assistance of his wife’s uncle, Clayton Knight, the Migliaccio’s captured the swarm and gently shook them into a new hive provided by Knight.

Because the first swarm was captured in September, there wasn’t as much nectar flow and pollen production left in the summer season to prepare the bees for winter.

“There is an old saying, ‘A swarm caught in May is worth a bale of hay’ down to September, ‘A swarm caught in September are bees to remember,’” Migliaccio said. “In other words, if you catch a swarm that late in the season because there isn’t much growing season left, they may not have enough time to build up honey stores and things to make it through the winter. So, we were a little bit apprehensive that our precious swarm would live through the winter of 2016 and 2017. But they did, we fed them.”

Combining sugar and water, Joe and Rita placed a shallow mixture in trays with pebbles near the hives for the bees to drink. This tray and pebble process ensures the bees can access the water without drowning. They used this feeding method every day when the outdoor temperature was above 50 degrees Fahrenheit since bees won’t fly out of the hive if it is below 50 degrees.

“Bees don’t fly unless it’s about 50 degrees because they know if they get caught [outside] and it’s too cold out, their bodies slow down and they don’t get back to the hive,” Migliaccio said.

The Migliaccios also wrapped the hive in Styrofoam to keep the bees warm for the winter.

There are several methods to making increase. During the summer of 2017, Joe purchased a queen honey bee to start a third hive continuing the making increase process by splitting the second hive.

“The three hives made it through the winter of 2017 to 2018,” he said. “This spring we split those three hives. Two of three succeeded, that brought us to five hives.”

Joe purchased three additional queens and started three new hives in early June.

Splitting involves dividing the colony, making sure a queen is secured for the second half and placing the colony in a separate hive.

“The queen is the life of the colony because the queen is the only insect in that colony that can lay eggs and the worker bees have only about 60 days to live,” Migliaccio said. “If the queen is gone, they know their time is limited and they’re a little bit more testy.”

When the colony decides it is time to swarm, they prepare multiple cells, or queen cups, for eggs to develop into queens. This is in preparation of the current queen to leave with the swarm. This is an approximate 30-day process.

The worker bees choose three-day-old larvae and they feed them a special diet of royal jelly to produce a queen. Royal jelly is secreted by the honeybee workers. When one of the larvae becomes a queen, she will destroy the remaining larvae that were developing into queens. She will leave the hive to mate and return to the hive.

A beekeeper may harvest the honey in the spring and in the fall. The keeper will leave enough honey for the colony’s food source during the winter. For the Migliaccios, honey production was small in the beginning.

“The hives we have are just now getting big enough to make honey,” Migliaccio said. “Last year we harvested two quarts; we’ll probably get three gallons this year.”

Migliaccio hasn’t escaped the occasional sting admitting he has been stung close to 40 times.

“I have been stung multiple times, part of it is my fault,” he said. “So, if I get in a hurry and say that ‘I’m just going to peek in the hive’ without dressing out, well you know that’s my fault.”

Migliaccio dresses in a beekeeper suit for protection against bee stings when taking care of the bees. A smoker, a handheld canister used to produce a smoke screen, helps with guarding against bee stings as well.

“The guard bees, their job is to watch the entrance [and] if someone is going to attack, they put off an alarm smell,” Migliaccio said. “When you smoke them, number one they run away because they think fire, and number two it obscures that emergency alarm smell that’s going to get you stung.

“We caught a swarm earlier this year and one morning before work I said ‘I’m going to get them out of this smaller swarm box and put them in a regular hive.’ I was in a hurry and started to light the smoker and didn’t. I got stung six or seven times through the bee suit. If they fly really hard, they can get through [the bee suit].”

Stings aside, Migliaccio enjoys beekeeping.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “Rita and I like to sit out and watch the bees come and go. In the spring we get out and watch and we see the pollen pockets on their legs. The color of pollen is related to the type of plant it came from and what is in bloom at the time. The other thing that we’ve tried to do is plant things that bees like.”

The bees collect the pollen from nearby flowering plants and bring it back to the colony for rearing the new family of bees, also known as the brood.

The honey bee is the official state agricultural insect for Tennessee. All honey bee colonies are required to be registered with the state apiarist of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, according to the Tennessee Apiary Act of 1995.

For more information on beginning a beekeeping hobby, visit the Tennessee Beekeepers Association website at www.tnbeekeepers.org.

Migliaccio has worked at AEDC for 38 years and resides in Moore County.