Here's the buzz: Tiny bees are roped in to fight elephant threat in Bengal

After technology and traditional methods proved ineffective in mitigating human-elephant conflict, the West Bengal government is turning to tiny bees to drive away the pachyderms in the conflict hotbed of north Bengal.

The natural deterrent, the government hopes, will not only prevent elephants from straying into human habitations but will also give a push to the “sweet revolution” envisaged by the National Bee Board and help villagers rake in the moolah.

That the behemoths are scared of tiny honeybees is mentioned in Kenyan folklore. But it was substantiated through research for the first time by zoologist Lucy King in a study paper published in 2007. Subsequently, researchers in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park found elephants do not come near bee swarms as they are extremely vulnerable to stings from the insects in the soft tissues present inside their trunks and around their eyes.

Researchers even found that elephants could detect the presence of agitated swarms of bees by taking a cue from a chemical substance released by the insects when they sense any threat.

Chemical alarm

When threatened, honeybees release a chemical substance called pheromones to seek help and alert other members of their colony, according to a research study on honeybee aggression by James Nieh, a professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego and his associate Dylan Voeller.

The researchers say elephants sense the presence of the chemical alarm of the bees and stay clear of the area. Besides, researchers further found that elephants are also driven away by bee buzz.

Taking cues from these researches, the trait of the elephants is now being used even in India as a strategy to keep elephants away from human habitations as well as to save them from being killed by speeding trains.

Railway trick

The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has been using since 2019 amplifying devices that emit the buzzing sounds of swarming bees along elephant corridors near railway tracks in its jurisdiction to keep the elephants away from oncoming trains. For its unique strategy, the railway division had also received the “best innovation” award from the Indian Railways.

West Bengal forest officials, however, say that the elephants being a very intelligent animal are now slowly realising the inefficacy of the fabricated threat and hence the need for the live bees to act as a natural repellent of the pachyderm.

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Twin-purpose mission

Adhering to the advice, a district administration in West Bengal launched a ₹2-crore project earlier this month to encourage people in 66 villages near Buxa Tiger Reserve and Jaldapara National Park in Alipurduar to take up beekeeping, with a dual purpose – protecting their lives and properties from foraging elephants, and livelihood generation.

As part of the project, boxes with live bee colonies and tool kits are being distributed to the residents of these mostly forest villages that are vulnerable to elephant attacks. The villagers are also being provided free training in apiculture with a target of producing around 10,000 kg of honey this year.

“The plan is to involve over 1500 families living in and around the Buxa Tiger Reserve and Jaldapara National Park in apiculture to reduce man-elephant conflict in the area and also to generate additional income for the villagers,” said Alipurduar district magistrate Surendra Kumar Meena.

Villagers elated

The villagers are naturally elated with the prospect of the double bonanza.

“Every year elephants destroy our paddy fields and at times even raze our houses and kill people. Various methods that we have been applying for years to ward them off are slowly becoming ineffective. Now they say bees will scare away the jumbos. If it does, it will be a great relief. Moreover, it will supplement the income of the villagers,” said Ram Kumar Toppo, a panchayat member of Madarihat, one of the villages included in the project.

A pilot programme launched as part of the project last year at Nurpur with 300 families proved fruitful, said Vinod Kharia, a local villager.

“Ever since we took up beekeeping, placing bee boxes around our paddy fields 18 months ago, elephants have stopped straying into this side,” he said.

The Centre is also promoting agriculture for income and employment generation as part of its National Beekeeping and Honey Mission, for which ₹500 crore has been allotted for 2020-21 to 2022-23.

India exported 59,999 tonnes of natural honey worth ₹716 crore during 2020-21. The main source of natural honey in West Bengal, one of the leading producers of the nectar in the country, is the Sunderbans delta.

The Alipurduar district administration is hopeful that soon north Bengal will compete with the Sunderbans in honey production if its project succeeds in keeping the elephants at bay.

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Animal-human conflict

Over 500 people and 100 elephants die and properties worth millions are damaged every year in India due to man-elephant conflicts, according to data released by the environment ministry last year. The northern part of Bengal, where Alipurduar is located, accounts for almost 12 per cent of all human deaths caused by elephants in the country, according to a Wildlife Trust of India report.

Traditional conflict mitigation methods such as driving away elephants physically by villagers by beating drums, bursting firecrackers, using chilli smoke etc have largely become ineffective as elephants have become used to such methods due to increased and repeated use, said Subhamoy Bhattacharjee, an environmentalist, who worked with the WTI.

Even barriers like electric fences are increasingly becoming useless since elephants soon learn that an electric shock does not harm them, he said. Electric fences transmit current at high voltage at low amperage to avoid physically harming animals. More and more elephant herds are unravelling the mystery and are also learning how to make them ineffective, Bhattacharjee said.

Now it is to be seen how effective bees can be in preventing human-elephant conflicts in North Bengal that has an estimated elephant population of over 500.