Q: How big a fence do you need to keep out an elephant?
A: What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?
I know that’s answering a question with a question, but, point is, looking for something bigger and stronger than an elephant to keep out an elephant is a problem. Besides, why keep elephants away? There’s no more intelligent, beautiful or worthy animal to live alongside.
Well, in African villages, elephants can trample and eat up all a farmer’s crops. They can be very large trouble.
Interesting that very small trouble might be a low-cost way to help elephants and us to coexist.
The BBC reports that the sound of bees can scare a whole herd of elephants away.
The African bee is aggressive. Their sting is painful - to people and to elephants. They sting and then they die; and when they sting, it releases a pheromone that encourages other bees to sting. Elephants have learned to avoid them.
A team of The Oxford researchers set up hidden loudspeakers in trees where elephants regularly came to find shade. While the animals rested, researchers played buzzing sounds recorded at beehives. Here’s what happened:
Ninety-four percent of the elephant families left the tree within 80 seconds of hearing bee sounds, nearly half of the time at a run.
(Don’t believe it? Watch the video)
But how to use this information?
Most farmers can’t afford to put up loudspeakers in their trees. Besides, elephants are smart and would figure out pretty soon that no stinging follows.
Nor would farmers like a huge hive of stinging bees sitting at the edgle of the crops. People are smart too, and have learned to avoid bees. Two ideas mentioned in the article:
1. a beehive fence: “where the passage of a hungry elephant would trigger bees to start flying and buzzing, giving the animal cause to turn and not come back.”
2. a chain of hives suspened from stanchions, linked together by wires which would be disturbed by an elephant’s leg.
Man, those elephants split quick.
I wouldn’t stick around if I heard a hive of angry bees, either.
If you can’t play the video at the link above, the Telegraph has it here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/popup/ttv/morenews.jhtml?bcpid=1137942530&bclid=1155254697&bctid=1233427530
Thanks so much for that link. I think we all would agree: elephants aren’t stupid. On the other hand, you would have to be deeply stupid to stick around a swarm of stinging bees.
That was a very cool video! I loved seeing their big ears perk up when they heard the bees. Obviously, elephants are no dummies …
Amazing that a beesting can penetrate their hide, though. They look so thick! I wonder if they get stung on certain parts of their bodies only … like maybe around their ears?
The bees sting them on their trunks.
Eleanor
No kidding? That’s wild …
Here’s more from Cabinet of Wonders:
http://www.wunderkabinett.co.uk/damndata/index.php?/archives/1080-Elephant-bee-haviour.html
“Baby elephants are especially vulnerable to angry bee swarms - their skin not being as tough as their adult counterparts - but even mature elephants can be affected by bee stings in and around their eyes and trunks so they will avoid the insects as and when possible.”
The elephants seem to have a very natural reaction to the buzzing of the bees. They look like they are hanging out under a tree at an elephant reunion that has been invaded by unwanted bees and decide to scoot. Pretty much the same reaction you would see from humans in the same situation. Just another verification that all species on Earth are closer to each other than we think. And love those ears.
Very interesting! Wonderful nature!
Elephants with aversions to bees, mice….what’s next, giant squids fleeing amoebas?