How Tiny Bees Save Mammoth Elephants

As of March 2021, elephants were officially classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as an endangered species. This is in increase from their old classification of vulnerable based on new evidence of the threatened mammals. The main source of their decrease in population is human-elephant conflicts and climate change. Climate change is leading to environmental problems that cause the loss of elephants’ food and their habitat. Humans are contributing to the loss of their habitat by expanding human lands and poaching which are the two biggest contributions to the decrease in elephant population density. However, help may surprisingly lie in the relationship between elephants and bees.

One of the main problems in the human-elephant conflict contributing to deaths in both humans and elephants is elephant crop-raiding. Elephants have been known to trample farmers’ fields in Africa and Asia to get food as the farms encroach on their land. These raids hurt the farmers who lose revenue from their lost product which is their only source of income and sometimes food supply. In turn, the farmers retaliate in extreme measures to keep their farms safe. Farmers shoot elephants on their property, surround their farms with electric fences, and even plant explosives in food around their farm, which they know elephants will eat. There was a lot of uproar in June of 2020 when explosives planted in a pineapple in India killed a pregnant elephant and while it was never proven how this happened many suspected it was nearby farmers trying to keep elephants away from their crops. Both farmers and elephants are suffering wildly from the problems of sharing space too closely.

The solution to this suffering may lie, oddly enough, in bees. Bees are one of the known fears of elephants. It might seem silly for the huge mammals to be afraid of the tiny insects but studies have proven that elephants avoid bees as much as possible. Scientist’s best guess on why is that elephants have evolved to fear the bees because the bees are able to access sensitive areas on elephants. Bee stings can’t penetrate an elephant’s tough hide skin but elephants have many sensitive areas around their eyes and trunks and behind their ears which bee stings can hurt. Over time it seems the elephants have grown to just avoid the insects to avoid the associated pain.

This inert fear of bees actually has already begun saving elephant and human lives in Africa and Asia. In the early 2000s, Dr. Lucy King began the award-winning Elephants and the Bees Project in collaboration with the Save the Elephants organization based on ideas from Kenyan farmers. Their project focuses on building what they call beehive fences. These fences aren’t real fences but are actually just beehives built with locally sourced materials. The hives are set up in a perimeter spaced about 10 meters apart around the edge of a farm. Elephants avoid the area because of the presence of the bees (or simulation of the bees) which saves their lives since they don’t threaten the crops any longer and saves the farmers’ crops and livelihood. The bees being so close also increases the pollination of the plants which leads to better and more crops. In addition, the beehive fences cost far less than the hurtful electrified fences and the farmers can also harvest the honey from the bees and sell it for an additional profit!

Beehive fence studies and trials are currently being conducted in 15 African and 4 Asian countries. In initial tests, beehive fences had a 50% effective rate and now they are showing up an 80% effective rate at reducing elephant crop raids. There are high numbers of farmers interested in trying out their beehive fences on their farms as well. The Elephants and the Bees Project is working to determine the best way to get beehive fences to as many farmers as they can as well as working to solve some of the problems they’ve discovered. Many farmers need education on how to take care of bees and funding to actually construct the fences. While the bees do deter the elephants, there are some problems with getting bees to stay in the hives when farmers do not know how to properly care for them and the bees themselves can injure the farmers. Some of the different types of bees are also more effective at deterring elephants but cannot be taken care of in all regions. However, the program is working to find the best options for farmers and elephants in all regions.

The Elephants and Bees Project helps to save the endangered elephants, the hard-working farmers, and the helpful bees. This project is now working with the Disney Conservation Fund, Save the Elephants, University of Oxford, Kenya Wildlife Service, and the Wildlife Conservation Network. With further research and trials, this project could be a widespread idea that helps bring the elephants off of the endangered species list all with the help of tiny bees!

If you would like to learn more about The Elephants and The Bees Project you can view their work at:

https://elephantsandbees.com/

https://www.savetheelephants.org/project/elephants-and-bees/.

Sources Used:

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Visual Sources Used:

Brighten, T. (2015, September 22). Beehive fence protects crops from African elephant raids. Tracy Brighten. https://tracybrighten.com/environment/beehive-fence-protects-crops-from-african-elephant-raids/

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Taylor, A. (2019, December 9). Elephants are scared of bees and it’s saving their lives. Under the Skin of Endangered Animals; Under the Skin. https://undertheskin.co.uk/journal/elephants-are-scared-of-bees/

‌You can read more about elephants and elephant species here: https://mozartcultures.com/en/african-forest-elephants-the-hidden-gentle-giants/