In southern Kenya, farmers facing crop-raiding elephants found an unusual barrier between their fields and hungry pachyderms- living beehives. The idea began with a surprising observation. Elephants could ignore a quiet hive, but when bees erupted from it, the animals ran. That discovery led zoologist Lucy King to develop beehive fences designed to protect crops without harming elephants. What followed was an experiment in whether something as simple as a swarm of angry bees could help ease one of the most difficult conflicts between people and wildlife. The report is sourced from Save The Elephants and Scientific American.
The approach has since spread to farms in Africa and Asia, while farmers have also gained another benefit from the hives: honey.
