Elephants & Bees Project

The African elephant is perhaps the most iconic migratory land mammal on the continent. However, these elephants are expanding into a world now densely settled by people, resulting in rising incidents of human- elephant conflict in areas where elephants are exploring migratory routes that are now blocked by new developments.

Elephants tend to crop-raid at nighttime, and farmers confronting elephants in the dark are often left with no choice but to throw stones and fire crackers or shoot bullets into the air to try to scare them away. This confrontation leads to heightened aggression and some elephants will charge and attack. These negative incidents often lead to terrible injuries or deaths of both people and elephants, not to mention the loss of families’ food sources as their crops are taken by the elephants.

The Elephants and Bees Project is part of the Save the Elephants’ Human Elephant Coexistence Program, based in Sagalla, Kenya, next to Tsavo National Park. Their award-winning project explores the use of Beehive Fences as a natural elephant deterrent, helping protect farmers and farmland. The idea is based on innovative research using elephants’ fear of African honeybees to help reduce crop-damage and minimize other human-elephant conflict incidences. No one likes being stung by bees, and this is even true for elephants, who dislike being stung in the soft tissue that’s present inside their trunks and around their eyes.

The Beehive Fences are simple and cheap, made with no cement and using only locally sourced materials. Hives, or dummy hives, are hung every ten meters and linked together in a specific formation so that should an elephant touch one of the hives, or interconnecting wire, the beehives all along the fence line will swing and release the bees. A win-win addition to a toolbox of deterrent methods, beehive fences help create a social and economic boost to farmers through pollination services and the harvesting of ‘Elephant-Friendly Honey’.

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