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The bees resolved a serious conflict in Kenya thanks to the original idea of a local farmer. Her crops were besieged by elephants, and to protect them, she built a fence of beehives.
Apparently, the insects scare away the huge animals, who posed a threat to the plantations of many producers. “We used to hate them,” said the creator of the idea.
How bees resolved a serious conflict in Kenya
To protect their crops from elephants, the Kenyan farmer Charity Mwangome implemented a successful idea: building a fence of African bee hives. The insects keep the pachyderms at a distance.
Kenya’s bees to scare away elephants. (Photo: AFP).
“We used to hate elephants a lot,” admits Charity Mwangome, in dialogue with AFP.
The problem was that the animals frequently ruined months of work on her farm, located between two parts of Tsavo National Park.
Adored by tourists, who contribute about 10% of Kenya’s GDP, elephants are detested by most local farmers, the backbone of the country’s economy.
Thanks to the elephant protection plan in Tsavo, the number has increased from about 6,000 in the 1990s to close to 15,000 in 2021, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
However, the human population also grew, and problems like this arose.
What the fences are like, the “magic solution”
As Mwangome narrated, after having completely lost her crops, the environmental protection association Save the Elephants proposed an unexpected solution. Scaring away one of the largest animals in the fauna with some of the smallest, the African bee.
Since then, fences made of hives protect the cultivated plots on the farms, including Mwangome’s.
Elephants avoid the farms where these fierce bees live 86% of the time, according to a study published in October. “The beehive fences came to our rescue,” says the farmer.
The problem caused by elephants in Kenya.
The buzzing of 70,000 bees scares away a six-ton elephant. Loise Kawira, who joined Save the Elephants in 2021 as a consultant in beekeeping, trains and guides farmers in this delicate technique.
The plots of the 49 farmers supported by the project are surrounded by 15 interconnected hives. Each one is suspended from a wire greased a few meters above the ground, protecting them from badgers and insects.
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