Earlier this year, beekeepers in Nepal near the Rapti River told us they moved hundreds of their hives to escape flooding. This year, many of them expected to move more than twice as many.

I have thought about these conversations often, and especially so since July, when floods swept away Apiaries in Chitwan. In Ratnanagar, hives in the Manikhola and Lalparsa areas were washed away following persistent rainfall. Many were already ready for honey extraction. Initial reporting put losses into the millions, and the full assessment is still pending. Behind finances and estimates were beekeepers losing colonies, livelihoods, and harvests they had already worked to produce.

Just a few months earlier, we were discussing how to protect hives from rising water. Then came another reminder of what happens when this protection is out of reach.

Flooding near Ratnanagar destroyed hundreds of beehives belonging to only a few beekeepers.

Beekeepers spend years building their apiaries, and floods dismantle their function in an afternoon. We often describe what happens afterwards as recovery, but a recovery without the resources to do so is a disaster. The catastrophic flooding that came from the Himalayas last month is another untimely example of this.

As I write this, El Nino is already established, strengthening, and will likely persist through February 2027. This outlook gives us another opportunity to prepare. The World Meteoroligcal Organization has warned of increasing shifts in heat, drought, and heavy rainfall across the world. Multiple pressures are attacking our beekeepers at once, and these pressures will only grow.