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HOW BEES SAVE ELEPHANTS

Bees on Guard: People, Elephants, and a Living Fence Between Them

Harambee – let us work together

Kenya’s national motto is “Harambee” – a Swahili word conveying the ideas of “All together,” “Let us join forces,” and “Let us work together.”

It would be difficult to find a more fitting motto for a honey bee colony. Tens of thousands of bees act as a single organism: they raise the brood, gather food, regulate the temperature inside the nest, and defend their shared home. An individual bee is vulnerable, but the colony survives through the coordinated efforts of all its members.

In one remarkable Kenyan project, the meaning of “Harambee” becomes even deeper. The bees work together, farmers join forces, and people search for a way to protect their livelihoods without killing elephants.

Thus, Kenya’s national motto also becomes an unwritten law of coexistence:

Harambee – let us work together!

When Elephants Enter the Fields

From a distance, elephants appear calm, wise, and gentle. But an encounter between an elephant and a human being looks very different when it takes place not in a tourist reserve, but in the middle of a family’s field at night.

A herd can destroy, in just a few hours, the crop on which an entire family depends. Elephants knock down fences, damage water pipes and buildings, and encounters with people sometimes result in severe injuries and death – on both sides.

To a farmer, the elephant is an enormous shadow that can take food away from his children. To the elephant, the field is a rich and easily accessible source of food that has appeared on land across which herds have travelled for generations.

Both the human being and the elephant are fighting for survival. Both may be in the right – and yet still become enemies.

Why Are Elephants Afraid of Bees?

An elephant’s thick skin protects it from many dangers, but its eyes, mouth, and the inside of its trunk remain sensitive. Alarmed African honey bees can attack precisely these vulnerable areas.

Elephants recognise the sound of disturbed bees and often retreat before they are even stung. They shake their heads, throw dust into the air, produce warning calls, and communicate the danger to other members of the herd. The family remembers the experience.

The idea of beehive fences is based on this natural behaviour.

Real beehives are placed around a field, alternating with less expensive empty dummy hives. They are all connected by wire. If an elephant attempts to pass through, it pulls the wire, causing the hives to swing. The bees become alarmed and fly out. In many cases, the movement of the hives and the sound of buzzing alone are enough to make the animal retreat.

This is not an impenetrable physical barrier. An elephant could easily destroy a wooden hive. The beehive fence works through the animal’s memory, hearing, and caution. It is a living warning system.

Nine Years of Observation Near Tsavo

Between 2012 and 2020, researchers monitored 26 small farms in two villages near Tsavo East National Park in Kenya. The beehive fences contained a total of 365 real hives, with approximately 12 to 15 hives placed around each protected area and alternating with dummy hives.

During the nine-year period, researchers analysed 3,999 elephant approaches to the monitored farms.

On average, the beehive fences deterred approximately 76% of the approaching elephants. During the six monitored seasons in which crops were growing well, their effectiveness ranged between 78.3% and 86.3%. The system worked best after sufficient rainfall, when more hives were occupied and the bee colonies were stronger.

This is a remarkable result for a relatively simple barrier that neither kills nor injures elephants, while also offering farmers pollination, honey, wax, and an additional source of income.

One Tonne of Honey from 365 Hives – Why So Little?

Over nine years, approximately one tonne of honey was recorded from the beehive fences and sold for around US$2,250.

If we simply divide this amount by 365 hives and nine years, the result is:

1,000 ÷ 365 ÷ 9 = 0.304 kg

That is only about 304 grams of honey per hive per year – a quantity that seems almost absurdly small to a beekeeper.

This calculation, however, is misleading. Although the project installed 365 hives, they did not represent 365 permanently occupied and productive bee colonies.

The hives were left to be colonised by natural swarms. In my experience of more than 30 years as a beekeeper, this happens extremely rarely – so rarely, in fact, that I have never witnessed it myself. Hive occupancy varied greatly according to rainfall, available vegetation, and environmental conditions. During the severe drought of 2017, the proportion of occupied hives fell by approximately 75%. At the worst point, occupancy dropped to about one-fifth of the hives.

It is therefore incorrect to divide the total amount of honey by all the installed hives. The yield should be calculated only in relation to the hives that were actually occupied by sufficiently strong colonies during the respective season. However, the scientific publication does not provide all the annual data necessary to calculate the exact average yield per active colony.

Drought Takes Away Both Nectar and Bees

The region around Tsavo is dry and vulnerable to prolonged periods without sufficient rainfall. When drought strikes:

flowering declines or disappears;
plants produce little or no nectar;
water sources dry up;
bee colonies weaken;
stored honey is consumed for the colonies’ own survival;
some colonies abandon their hives.

The consequences of the severe drought did not end with the first rain. Low hive occupancy and poor honey yields persisted for approximately another three years.

Local African populations of Apis mellifera are more likely to abandon their nests in response to starvation, overheating, or prolonged disturbance. This is an adaptation to a harsh and unpredictable environment: rather than remain in a hopeless location, the colony searches for another territory.

This Is Not an Ordinary Apiary

The hives are distributed around the boundaries of 26 separate farms. They do not form a central apiary receiving continuous professional care. This makes regular inspections, swarm control, repairs, timely hive expansion, and organised honey harvesting more difficult.

The owners are farmers first and foremost. Their main concerns are their crops and the safety of their families; beekeeping is a secondary activity. Some of the honey may have remained unharvested, been used by the households, or never entered the official reporting and sales system. The publication reports the honey produced and sold, but does not allow us to determine whether every harvested kilogram was recorded.

Hive design also matters. The project used both Kenyan top-bar hives and Langstroth hives. An earlier study conducted in the same area found significantly higher occupancy and productivity in Langstroth hives than in the top-bar hives used there.

One tonne of honey does not prove that African bees are unproductive. It shows that this was not an apiary consisting of 365 permanently active colonies. The hives were primarily components of a protective system.

As a honey-production project, the result is poor. As a means of protection, however, the result is impressive. The true “harvest” is not merely the honey, but also the maize that was saved, the farmers’ work that was preserved, and the reduced risk of humans and elephants killing one another.

The Beehive Fence Only Says: “Not Here”

This raises a more important question: what happens to the elephant that has been driven away?

The beehive fence protects a particular field, but it does not create new grazing land, a new river, or a new place to live. It does not solve hunger or thirst. It says only: “Not here.”

The repelled elephant may return to the savannah, search for another water source, or go around the fence. It may try again at night or move towards a neighbouring, unprotected field.

Animals quickly discover weak points. The Kenyan study recorded 343 passages through gaps at the ends of fences, without the elephants passing between the hives themselves. After the openings were additionally protected with strings of metal cans containing stones, the number of such incidents fell sharply.

This demonstrates both the intelligence and persistence of elephants, as well as the essence of the problem: an elephant does not stop needing food when it encounters a fence. It merely searches for another route to reach it.

Why Is the Field Irresistible?

During the wet season, savannah elephants feed primarily on grasses. During dry periods, they turn to leaves, twigs, bark, roots, and fruit. To sustain its enormous body, an adult elephant must find substantial quantities of plant matter and water every day.

Agricultural crops are a far more concentrated and easily accessible source of nutrients than sparse, dry vegetation. Maize, sorghum, watermelons, and other crops are gathered in one place, are succulent, and do not require hours of searching.

To an elephant, a field is what an open honey warehouse would be to bees.

Ancient Routes Are Being Closed

Elephants do not necessarily spend the entire year within the boundaries of national parks. They range across vast territories and follow traditional routes between grazing grounds, forests, breeding areas, and seasonal water sources.

In southern Kenya, herds move between the ecosystems of Tsavo, Amboseli, the Chyulu Hills, community and private conservancies, and land used by local people.

These routes existed long before modern roads, railway lines, fields, and cadastral boundaries. Today, however, the corridors are crossed by infrastructure and settlements or divided into small private plots.

GPS collar observations show that elephants use the underpasses built beneath the railway line through Tsavo. Many crossings take place at night, and the animals increase their speed when entering the underpasses – behaviour suggesting tension in a dangerous and heavily altered environment.

An elephant does not understand cadastres, private property, or national park boundaries. It understands hunger, thirst, and the remembered path to water.

When that path is blocked, conflict becomes almost inevitable.

How Is Kenya Trying to Help Both People and Elephants?

No single fence or technology can solve the problem. An entire system of complementary measures is needed.

Preserving Migration Corridors

This is the most important long-term solution. If a traditional route to water is built over, an elephant cannot create a new river.

Kenya’s National Elephant Action Plan for 2023–2032 emphasises the protection and restoration of corridors, the connection of habitats, spatial planning, and the design of infrastructure that accommodates the movement of wildlife.

Underpasses and wildlife crossings can help, but only if the routes leading to them and the land beyond them also remain open.

Community Conservancies and Fair Income

Some of the land surrounding the parks is managed as community conservancies. Local landowners can receive income from tourism, jobs, conservation projects, and lease agreements in exchange for protecting important areas from construction and fencing.

This is crucial. If the whole world wants elephants to survive, it is unfair for the poor farmer living beside a reserve to bear the cost alone through the loss of his crops.

People must be able to see an economic and social value in a living elephant. If the animal brings only fear, damage, and unfulfilled promises, tolerance will inevitably disappear.

Protection and Early Warning

Beehive fences are only one of the methods used. Other measures include electric fences, floodlights, sirens, monitoring teams, GPS tracking, and early-warning systems.

Ropes and other barriers treated with chilli peppers are also being tested, along with noise deterrents and crops that are less attractive to elephants.

Every measure has limitations. Elephants learn, become accustomed to repeated signals, and discover weak points. Protection must therefore evolve and form part of broader planning rather than merely driving elephants from one field to another.

Compensating Those Who Suffer Losses

Kenya has a compensation system covering human death or injury, destroyed crops, killed livestock, and damaged property.

In practice, however, assessment and payment are not always sufficiently prompt. For someone who has lost an entire year’s harvest, compensation at some future date cannot replace the food needed today.

Fair and timely compensation is not a gift. It is part of the price society must pay if it wants wildlife to be protected.

Relocating Individual Groups

In 2024, Kenya relocated 50 elephants from the overcrowded Mwea National Reserve to the more spacious Aberdare National Park. The animals were sedated, transported in specialised trucks, and fitted with GPS transmitters.

Such operations can reduce pressure in a particular location, but they are expensive, complex, and risky. They can be used for dozens of animals, not tens of thousands. Moreover, relocation succeeds only if the new territory has sufficient space, water, and food.

Is Kenya Succeeding?

The answer is both yes and no.

Kenya has achieved great success in protecting its elephants. After the devastating decades of poaching, the national population has recovered significantly. This is a genuine conservation achievement.

But the growth of the elephant population coincides with human population growth, agricultural expansion, and the fragmentation of open land. Success has therefore created a new challenge: more elephants must survive in a world where free space is diminishing.

Kenya has succeeded in saving many elephants, but it has not yet created sufficient conditions everywhere for their peaceful coexistence with people.

This is not merely a Kenyan problem. It is a global question about the cost of wildlife conservation and who should pay that cost.

An Elephant Is Not a Pet

An elephant can recognise people, form long-lasting bonds, and display trust and affection. That does not make it a domesticated animal.

It needs an enormous territory, diverse plant food, large quantities of water, interaction with other elephants, and the freedom to choose where it goes. Caring for an elephant requires specialised veterinary assistance, qualified keepers, and substantial resources.

In some Asian countries, elephants have been used for centuries in transport, forestry work, ceremonies, and tourism. Behind the outward image of the “tame elephant,” however, there are often chains, confinement, coercive training, and a disrupted social life.

Centres for orphaned elephant calves in Kenya follow a different principle. The young animals receive constant care and human closeness, but the ultimate aim is their gradual return to the wild.

An elephant is too intelligent, social, and freedom-loving ever truly to belong to one person.

The Tears of the Displaced Elephant

Will anyone see the tears in the eyes of an elephant that has been driven away, hungry and thirsty?

Elephants can produce tears, but we cannot scientifically claim that every tear expresses sadness in the human sense. We do not, however, need tears in order to recognise their suffering.

It can be seen in exhaustion, anxiety, stealthy movement at night, separation from the herd, and the persistent return to a place where water once existed.

Bees drive the elephant away from one field. An electric fence stops it before another. A railway line cuts across its path. A settlement has expanded around the water source.

In the eyes of the displaced elephant, there is not necessarily hatred towards human beings. There is hunger, thirst, and bewilderment at why the world it remembers will no longer allow it to pass.

Recognising its suffering does not mean leaving farmers unprotected. Human life and labour are no less valuable. Compassion for elephants must not require poor people to sacrifice their livelihoods.

Real help means ensuring that beyond the beehive fence there is an open corridor, water, and a place towards which the animal can be guided. Otherwise, we are not resolving the conflict – we are merely moving the suffering elsewhere.

How Can We Provide Real Help?

Elephants are neither Kenya’s property nor Kenya’s problem alone. They are inhabitants of the Earth. Above them is the same sky that stretches above us.

Practical assistance must support both the elephants and the people who live alongside them:

preserving migration corridors;
protecting fields without killing animals;
providing fair income and compensation for local communities;
restoring habitats and water sources;
training people to use beehive fences and helping maintain them;
providing veterinary care and returning orphaned elephants to the wild;
monitoring, early warning, and rapid responses to conflict.

Save the Elephants develops the “Elephants and Bees” project and other methods for peaceful coexistence. Big Life Foundation works to preserve important corridors through agreements with local landowners. Sheldrick Wildlife Trust rescues and raises orphaned animals with the aim of returning them to the wild.

Help does not need to be enormous. It needs to be consistent, transparent, and directed towards a specific result.

It is better to say:

“We helped keep a specific section of a migration corridor open.”

or:

“We helped build and maintain a beehive fence for a particular farming family.”

Then the donation has a place, a human face, and a measurable result.

Beekeepers around the world have a special connection to this cause. Bees can protect crops, provide farmers with additional income, and reduce the risk of elephants being injured or killed. But the fence must be only one half of the solution. The other half is an open route by which the displaced animal can reach food and water.

Under the Same Sky

We cannot give every elephant a home. We can, however, help ensure that its home is not taken away.

We can protect the farmer without declaring the elephant an enemy. We can protect the elephant without expecting poor people to bear the cost alone. We can transform compassion into a wildlife corridor, a water source, a beehive, compensation, or a harvest saved from destruction.

A beehive fence can save a field. Only a preserved route to food and water can save the elephant as well.

And here we return once more to the word with which we began: