JOHANNESBURG — Eek, a bee! Lore has it that elephants are afraid of mice, but scientists have discovered that elephants are truly afraid of bees — and that the pachyderms even sound an alarm when they encounter them.
The researchers hope this discovery can help save farmers’ crops and the elephants too.
Human-elephant conflicts in countries such as Kenya occur often. A single hungry elephant can wipe out a family’s crops overnight. Farmers sometimes kill elephants for raiding their crops.
The discovery that elephants emit low-frequency alarm calls around bees could help lessen these conflicts, said Lucy King, a researcher into animal behavior whose work was published in the journal of the Public Library of Science.
Farmers could make “bee fences” by stringing up hives on poles around their crops, King said.
