by Cybil Preston

• Spotted Lanternfly: Honey bees will forage on Spotted Lanternfly honeydew.  In some areas where SLF is plentiful, colonies gained winter weight.  Some beekeepers choose to extract the fall flow for honey sales or leave it on for winter feed. 
• If you are moving bees in and out of the state please acquire a permit through MDA and continue to monitor and look for egg masses on your hives and equipment. 
• Some hives are still brooding and putting on weight from goldenrod.  I don't remember a goldenrod bloom like the one this year!    
• There have been calls about weird late swarms: were these true swarms or absconds from hive pressure or irritations?
• The Yellow Legged Hornet has moved into 3 states now.  Georgia, South Carolina and most recently North Carolina. 
  Beekeepers must vigilantly monitor their apiaries for "Hawking" behavior in front of and around the hives.  Nests are paper nests, resembling other hornet nests.  
• Also some calls about possible Northern Giant Hornet sightings. 
  We fielded 50 inquiries for insect identifications, 25 fewer than than last year.    
• Field Watch/Bee Check: This Voluntary beehive mapping tool is going strong.  There are more beekeepers registered than any other crop!
• Thank you to all the beekeepers that participated in the USDA/APHIS National Honeybee Survey.  We got a late start due to a delay in funding. MDA completed 17 sites and will resume in April to finish the last 7. 
  Starting in summer, we will begin the 2027 sampling. Please contact me if you are interested in participating in either of these surveys. Again, thank you to those who have already participated and to those who wish to be future participants. You must have 8 colonies located in the same apiary to qualify. I appreciate your willingness to participate! 
• If you have or are starting a beekeeping management business... If you are being paid to apply any miticides to someone else's colonies you must have a pesticide applicators license. 
  Keywords Here: If you are being paid; if you do not own the bees. This does not apply to mentor/mentee relationships. Apiary management businesses only.  
• Online connections: We are in the first stages of getting a new database. MDA plans to send a beekeeper notification via email. MDA not yet able to do online registration but we may be able to do an electronic notification. If not, we will be mailing the 2027 apiary registration form soon. 
  Please update, sign and return your registration forms as soon as possible.  USPS, Scan + email, fax...There are many ways to return the form.  
• One honey bee swarm was caught at the Port of Baltimore and three swarms at the BWI airport; all were eradicated.The swarm traps are monitored and the lure is refreshed bi-weekly.  We are looking for any Apis species and their parasites that may have hitched a ride on shipments, for example Apis cerana or dorsata or Tropilaelaps)
• Final Note: The human Apiary Inspectors are finished for the season and  ... Tukka the canine Disease detector is getting ready to start back to work as soon as we get some colder temperatures. New trainee Lucy LuLu is working towards certification.  
• Maryland's AFB canine will be back into inspections as soon as the weather gets below 50 degrees F. We will work on commercial beekeepers moving to California first.

Cybil Preston Chief Apiary Inspector State Apiarist EAS Certified Master Beekeeper Certified Maryland Honey Judge Maryland Department of Agriculture 50 Harry S. Truman Parkway Annapolis, Maryland 21401 cybil.preston@maryland.gov (410) 562-3464 (M)

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