To stop wild elephants from rampaging through their produce, farmers in Thailand put up electric fences, set off firecrackers and even switched their crops from pineapples to pumpkins, which the pachyderms do not relish much. Nothing worked, so the villagers decided on Plan Bee.
In a pilot scheme run by the Thai Department of National Parks, farmers are deploying bees as a new line of defense, exploiting elephants’ documented fear of bee stings.
The idea to play on the phobia came out of Oxford University research and has been used successfully for several years in Africa. It is now gaining a toehold in Asia.
Photo: AP
The problem is quite severe in the eastern province of Chanthaburi, which has thick forests near farming communities that grow rice, cassava, pineapple and rubber.
There are an estimated 3,000 wild elephants in Thailand, according to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. As farmers push into forests for agriculture, elephants have been forced to venture out of their shrinking habitats in search of food.
“Starting two years ago, elephants have come and destroyed farmers’ crops almost every day,” said Prasit Sae-Lee, the head of the local administration. “Elephants travel in a herd, a big herd, razing everything to the ground everywhere they go. The ground is flattened so much so that a 10-wheeled truck can drive through after they had gone.”
Government officials suggested farmers stop growing pineapples, which elephants love.
“The latest suggestion is for us to grow pumpkins,” Prasit said. “But it didn’t solve anything. They destroyed pumpkins. They pulled roots out and stepped on them and even ate them.”
Help for the residents of the remote Pana village came from a government wildlife research station, which is helping them raise bees. It is a simple technique. Traditionally beehives are placed on the ground, but here researchers raise them on stilts, putting them at eye level for the elephants.
Beehive boxes are connected with a rope to create a fence. When the elephants try to enter, they push at the ropes and shake the beehives, causing the bees to swarm out in a fearsome cloud of buzz and venomous sting that the animals are unlikely to forget.
“At first I thought it would not work. Even the forestry officials did not think it would work,” said Boonchu Sirimaha, 66, whose family became the first in the village to participate in the research project. “But after we put the beehives up [two months ago], it worked. The elephants were stung by the bees and they have not been back since.”
The downside of the project is that it is not feasible on large farms because that would require thousands of beehive boxes, which would prove to be expensive. Each box has about 10,000 bees and costs 4,000 baht (US$115).
However, it is a good solution for small farms, and for people like Boonchu who want to protect their homes, which can be ring-fenced by beehives.
“They will have to figure out ways that are cheap for everyone to use,” said Tony Lynam of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. “Methods they can set up by themselves such as fences with bells, and guard posts ... firecrackers, beehives, all of these things can be used together but any one of those methods by itself won’t be a solution,” he said.
Boonchu’s daughter, Dararath, is happy with the bee strategy.
“The elephants come out at night. They come all the way up to the house,” said Dararath, 36, recalling the horrors of the past. “They’ve banged against our door and windows. They have tipped over parked motorcycles, pulled down tarpaulins and knocked over our washing machine.”
Dararath is now a beekeeper. A spin-off benefit is that for every 50 boxes she cultivates, she harvests 300kg of honey, which sells for 150 to 500 baht per kilogram. The beeswax can sell for about that much.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of