Читать книгу Bees Make the Best Pets - Jack Mingo - Страница 8

Why keep bees? Because it keeps the elephants away. Okay, it's an old joke, but just in case you haven't heard it:

A man in a restaurant is perturbed by the odd behavior of a woman at the next table. He asks: “Why do you keep snapping your fingers and tossing your napkin in the air?”

She answers: “Because it keeps the elephants away.”

“But that's ridiculous,” says the man. “There's not a wild elephant for thousands of miles!”

She gives him a triumphant look, and responds: “See how well it works?”

It turns out that bees really can keep the elephants away. In 2011, the BBC reported that Kenya had successfully reversed a serious decline in the elephant population, bringing their numbers up to 7,500. The problem was that pillaging pachyderms began raiding subsistence farmers' fields for tomatoes, potatoes, and corn. The destruction, as you can imagine, of having a bull elephant in your garden can be pretty extreme, and farmers began fighting back with guns and poisons.

The elephants easily knocked down fences and barriers, but in 2009 researchers at the University of Oxford and Save the Elephants discovered a method that was 97 percent effective in repelling elephants: beehives. A group of 17 farms was surrounded by a border of 170 beehives, placed 10 meters (33 feet) apart.

Elephants may be thick-skinned, but they don't like bees for a very good reason. The bees are very good at targeting the vulnerable parts of even thick-skinned animals, around the eyes, mouth, and nose. Elephant trunks are especially sensitive, and the aggressive African bees will fly right up inside them to sting if necessary.

The bottom line is that elephants attempted 32 raids over a three-year period. Only one got through the beeline; the rest were quickly convinced to pack up their trunks and go.

Last news was that conservationists intended to use the idea in other communities as well. Meanwhile, the farmers were trained to harvest honey and wax from their garden guardians, providing additional income and extra motivation for keeping the hives in good shape.