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The Elephants and Bees Project is an innovative study using an in-depth understanding of elephant behaviour to reduce damage from crop-raiding elephants using their instinctive avoidance of African…

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African Honeybees Change Lives and Save Elephants

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African Honeybees Change Lives and Save Elephants

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African honey bees change lives and save elephants

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Bees help tackle elephant-human conflict in Kenya 

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Bees help tackle elephant-human conflict in Kenya 

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Bees help tackle elephant-human conflict in Kenya | AFP

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Amazing Time-Lapse: Bees Hatch Before Your Eyes

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Amazing Time-Lapse: Bees Hatch Before Your Eyes

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Amazing Time-Lapse: Bees Hatch Before Your Eyes | National Geographic

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Honey Bees Make Honey ... and Bread? | Deep Look

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The Buzzing Life Cycle of Bees: Facts You Didn't Know!

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The Buzzing Life Cycle of Bees: Facts You Didn't Know!

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The Buzzing Life Cycle of Bees: Facts You Didn't Know!

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How Elephant Families Communicate and Bond

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How Elephant Families Communicate and Bond

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How Elephant Families Communicate and Bond | Secrets of the Elephants

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Bees for Elephants: Butterfly Pavilion's Bee Fencing Project - Butterfly Pavilion

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Butterfly Pavilion supports the spread of beehive fencing to new communities in Africa and Asia to mitigate human-elephant conflict.

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Elephants are scared of bees and it’s saving their lives

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Elephants are scared of bees and it’s saving their lives

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Elephants. The ultimate charismatic megafauna, the largest of all land mammals, the megaherbivores that can radically change their environments.

But these goliaths are afraid of tiny insects - bees. And where they are in danger from humans, this fear is being used to save their lives.

Catastrophic poaching of elephants in Africa during the 1970s and 80s saw their numbers plummet. Thankfully, CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) implemented an international ivory trade ban in 1989 which, combined with effective wildlife management, allowed them to recover. Although poaching continues and elephants are by no means safe from the threat of extinction, their populations have increased, particularly in east and southern Africa.

This fear has been harnessed into a project of beautiful simplicity. The Elephants and Bees Project involves the use of beehive fences, erected around farms to keep the elephants out and protect the crops. Hives of bees are strung up between posts every 10 metres, linked by rope or wires. When the fence is disturbed by an elephant, the hives sway and the bees become aggravated, causing them to flee the hive. In turn, the elephants flee from the swarm and the farm.

In a trial of the method, the fences were a successful deterrent 80% of the time, and bring with them myriad benefits. Farmers have protection of their crops so they don't have to defend them themselves and wound or kill elephants, and are less likely to kill elephants in retaliation for destroying their crops. The bees produce delicious "elephant-friendly" honey, which can be harvested and sold for extra profits in often poverty-stricken communities, especially since beekeeping is an age old activity in Africa. The bees provide pollination services for their crops, too which increases their yield, and a stable income can be a powerful alternative to wildlife poaching. It is a true win-win conservation project, for humans and for elephants.

The project is the brainchild of Dr Lucy King, the undisputed Queen of the elephants and bees initiative. Winner of the Unep/CMS Thesis prize at the 2011 Convention on Migratory Species (given for a particularly outstanding PhD thesis in the conservation field), Lucy founded the project and works alongside the charity Save The Elephants. That elephants have a fear of bees was first reported by Lucy, in a study published in 2007. It had previously been suspected - in Kenya there were reports that elephants damaged acacia trees with empty or occupied beehives significantly less than trees without any hives, and in Zimbabwe, elephants were observed to forge new trails in order to avoid beehives - but Lucy's study confirmed it. The team of scientists digitally recorded the buzz of agitated African honeybees by setting up a microphone and recorder, dropping a stone into a beehive to trigger an attack...then running like hell!

For the work she had done with the beehive fences, Lucy won the 2013 St Andrews prize for the Environment (awarded by St Andrews University). This gave her financial support to expand her work to Asia. Humans and elephants have a long history of working and living alongside each other on this continent - elephants are sacred in the Hindu and Buddhist religions. However, the elephant population has experienced a rapid decline, as has their original habitat, but there has also been a rapid rise in the human population. Asia's remaining 30,000 elephants are attempting to share shrinking space with approximately 20% of the world's human population. They are increasingly living in small areas; islands surrounded by seas of human settlement.

Incidents of elephants raiding crops and villages are on the rise, and retaliation killing by local people is thought to be the leading cause of elephant deaths in Asia. In Sri Lanka, over 250 elephants have been killed, however, it was here that it was discovered that Asian elephants are equally scared of bees. Now, Elephants and Bees Projects are in operation in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and Thailand, as well as 11 countries in Africa.

A number of elephants in the project areas are collared, so that the scientists can collect data on their movements. The conservation world is increasingly using this type of technology, but the beauty of the Elephants and Bees Project is that it blends this high tech, with low tech - with such a simple design and no moving parts at all, the fences are a grassroots solution for people with no electricity.

Combined with a mobile unit to reach more conflict areas, an education programme they run to train young people and a women's enterprise programme, it not only continues to expand its great work, it continues to save lives.

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Written by

Alex is a freelance journalist and conservation blogger who writes about the many ways in which humans are impacting the lives of the species we share our planet with.

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Elephants are scared of bees and it's saving their lives - Under the Skin of Endangered Animals

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Elephants. The ultimate charismatic megafauna, the largest of all land mammals, the megaherbivores that can radically change their environments. But these goliaths are afraid of tiny insects - bees. And where they are in danger from humans, this fear is being used to save their lives.

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What does it mean to be a conservationist? An interview with elephant conservationist Danielle Carnahan

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What does it mean to be a conservationist? An interview with elephant conservationist Danielle Carnahan

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What does it mean to be a conservationist? An interview with elephant conservationist Danielle Carnahan | Conservation Careers

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In this interview, elephant conservationist Danielle Carnahan explains how she combines freelance work with a job researching elephant welfare in Nepal.

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Careers in conservation with Professor Libby John

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Careers in conservation with Professor Libby John

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Careers in conservation with Professor Libby John

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How bees can keep the peace between elephants and humans | Lucy King

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How bees can keep the peace between elephants and humans | Lucy King

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How bees can keep the peace between elephants and humans | Lucy King