TIL: Bees Could Help Save Elephants—By Scaring Them | Today I Learned

[Music] African bees are renowned to be very vicious, and, uh, elephants are terrified because they literally don't want to have a bee of their trunk stinging them.

Elephants tend to rest under very big trees, and if there is a natural beehive, the elephants will hear the bees beginning to buzz, and they will retreat or stop doing what they're doing. They know that bees, when disturbed, will swarm and sting. Knowing that elephants are scared of bees means that we can actually save elephants.

Elephants are one of the most destructive animals in Africa. They're very, very hard to manage and control because they're so big, and they're so intelligent, and they eat a lot. If you put up beehives in areas where elephants like to raid farms, we can actually create a barrier between people and elephants by using bees.

[Music] But we can also take advantage of the fact that it's just the sound of the bees that the elephants are aware of. So we can use instruments that make that sound, like drones, to actually chase elephants away from places where they could cause a lot of damage.

Bees and the buzzing and the fear of bees being used to keep elephants safe—it's very cool. [Music] All bees buzz, but bumblebees are one of the very few types of bees that actually take that buzzing sound and use it like a secret weapon to get pollen.