{"id":796,"date":"2026-05-23T10:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T10:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=796"},"modified":"2026-05-23T10:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T10:30:17","slug":"some-experts-say-theyve-never-seen-bees-swarm-so-early-and-thats-concerning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=796","title":{"rendered":"Some experts say they\u2019ve never seen bees swarm so early — and that\u2019s concerning"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Spring is when honeybees are bringing in food, the hive is healthy and growing, and they simply … run out of space. That\u2019s when they decide to split their overcrowded hives and send half swarming off in search of greener pastures. <\/p>\n

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But Southern California beekeepers saw that happen unusually early this year, which left many of them scrambling.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever before have I seen so many bees swarm in late February and March,\u201d said Daniel Barkanov, a beekeeper with Bee Specialist who works primarily in the San Gabriel Valley. \u201cUsually that happens between May and June,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe shift this year was quite, quite dramatic in many areas, especially in Central and Southern California,\u201d said Mateo Kaiser, a beekeeper and managing director at Swarmed, a network of 10,000 beekeepers focused on monitoring and safe hive relocation.<\/p>\n

Beekeepers typically try to guide swarming so their their colonies can grow. They divide their own hives at the start of swarming season to prevent bees from flying off, and pick up unwanted ones that land in people\u2019s attics and walls. <\/p>\n

But this year, many were caught unprepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were scrambling to even just have the materials ready to catch the bees and get them into beehives,\u201d Kaiser said.<\/p>\n

Climate change is one likely culprit for the early takeoff. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s substantive evidence that climate change alters bee reproductive cycles and colony dynamics,\u201d said Boris Baer, co-director of the Center for Integrative Bee Research at UC Riverside. <\/p>\n

Some beekeepers and scientists think the warm winter in the West and early flowering season this year led bees to go into their high-activity mode early, leading to earlier swarms.<\/p>\n

That can pose a problem if they then run into food shortages with an unexpected cold snap or dry spring, like the one now in the West. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you give bees a kind of early signal here, like that spring has started, it\u2019s warm, they jump into action,\u201d Baer said. \u201cThen you have drought, or you don\u2019t have the normal amount of resources they can rely on, and the bees can run out of food during a very critical time of the year.\u201d <\/p>\n

Some bees are on the move at other times of year, but true swarm season kicks off when numbers cross a threshold after a period of warm, spring \u201cgrowing degree days,\u201d a term used by farmers to predict the growth of plants and insects. <\/p>\n

Kaiser dated the start of Los Angeles County\u2019s swarm season to March 12 this year, the earliest in the last five and probably the last 10 years. It\u2019s also more than a month earlier than last year.<\/p>\n

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Barkanov thinks that one reason, besides the warm winter and spring, could be that the bees didn\u2019t swarm enough last season. Air pollution and habitat loss are known to affect them, and last year was particularly difficult for hives here, with beekeepers reporting slow bee activity and losses from the January fires. <\/p>\n

He said he was prepared for early swarms this year, but what he observed then was unexpected \u2014 a pause. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense why they started swarming, then stopped this year,\u201d he said. \u201cBees are really, really confused on what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many are reporting fewer bees on the move overall, which could mean fewer colonies are growing and splitting off this year in search of more space and food. <\/p>\n

That could be a sign of poor health, said Barbara Baer-Imhoof, Baer\u2019s co-director. \u201cAt this time of year, bees should be bringing in a lot of food, but we\u2019ve been having to feed our bees constantly, throughout winter up until now,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

U.S. honeybee declines have been making headlines since the early 2000s. Last year saw the largest die-off in recorded history, with beekeepers losing over 60% of their hives. Pesticides and environmental factors such as climate change and urban sprawl are known stressors. Research also links last year\u2019s massive colony collapses to parasitic varroa mites that feed on bee larvae and transfer viruses to hives. <\/p>\n

A shorter winter and earlier swarm can make bees more vulnerable to these pests. <\/p>\n

Typically, bees stop laying eggs during the winter, or at least slow down activity, which represses mite activity. But warmer winters and \u201cthe spring season starting earlier means the mites have more prime time to reproduce and grow up in the colony,\u201d Kaiser said.<\/p>\n

San Fernando Valley-based beekeeper Nicole Palladino, who runs the relocation service Bee Catchers Inc, said she isn\u2019t particularly concerned by a March start to swarming season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the bee population looks a lot better than it did last year,\u201d she said. \u201cSeeing the early swarm showed that a lot of the bees that we saw after the fires maybe became more stable and got stronger later in the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were fully in peak swarm in January, that would terrify me,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

Elina L. Ni\u00f1o, an apiculture professor at UC Davis, said many factors can contribute to earlier-than-usual swarm reports, as well as reports of fewer swarms, and an annual beekeeper survey out later in the year will provide a clearer picture of how the last year\u2019s conditions have affected bees. <\/p>\n

Kaiser agreed, but he said the survey will come out too late in the season for beekeepers to address shifts in swarming behavior and monitor for mites. \u201cWe chose to alert beekeepers to this now, and to have them keep an eye on this behavior,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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A warm winter and dry spring could be making bees more vulnerable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate"],"yoast_head":"\nSome experts say they\u2019ve never seen bees swarm so early - and that\u2019s concerning - California Relocation Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=796\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Some experts say they\u2019ve never seen bees swarm so early - and that\u2019s concerning - California Relocation Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A warm winter and dry spring could be making bees more vulnerable.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/california-relocation-journal.com\/?p=796\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"California Relocation Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-23T10:30:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=796#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=796\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b85b48ca4c2015dd056e0e9c18912121\"},\"headline\":\"Some experts say they\u2019ve never seen bees swarm so early — and that\u2019s concerning\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-23T10:30:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=796\"},\"wordCount\":971,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=796#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/fd40f6272e3630f97f995fdf7c1e3045-2.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Climate\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=796#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=796\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/california-relocation-journal.com\\\/?p=796\",\"name\":\"Some experts say they\u2019ve never seen bees swarm so early - 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