The Elephants and Bees Project Using Bees as a Natural Deterrent for Crop-Raiding Elephants

Elephants in Kenya are not confined to national parks and reserves; hence interactions between farmers and crop-raiding elephants can pose serious social, political, economical and conservation problems. Dr Lucy King’s... [ view full abstract ]

Elephants in Kenya are not confined to national parks and reserves; hence interactions between farmers and crop-raiding elephants can pose serious social, political, economical and conservation problems. Dr Lucy King’s research has proved that African elephants are aware about, and will actively avoid, the threat of African honey bees. She demonstrated that not only do they run away from disturbed bee sounds but her team also revealed that elephants emit a unique low frequency (infrasonic) rumble that warns other elephants in the area to retreat. These rumbles appear to be novel to the threat of bees when compared to infrasonic rumbles emitted by elephants in response to human threat. These behavioural discoveries were groundbreaking, and encouraged her to develop and test a unique application for this behaviour through the use of protective Beehive Fences around farmers’ fields with the aim of reducing human-elephant conflict (HEC). The Beehive Fences are not only reducing damaging crop-raids by elephants by as much as 80%, but the bees are also helping to pollinate the fields, and farmers are now harvesting valuable “Elephant-Friendly Honey” as an additional product from their land. Since starting her research in 2006, the Beehive Fence HEC mitigation concept has spread rapidly and Beehive Fences are presently up and running in test sites in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Mozambique, India and Sri Lanka and has now been incorporated into Kenya’s 2012-2021 management strategy for elephant conservation in the country. The Elephants and Bees Project (www.elephantsandbees.com) is lead by Dr Lucy King under the umbrella of the research charity Save the Elephants.