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Elephants are scared around bees

nautil.us

31–40 of 108 posts

Re: Elephants are scared around bees

#32

There’s a brief mention of a study that found that “merely playing recordings of angry bees through speakers in the field was enough to cause the elephants to flee” but it seems like that would be a far cheaper solution than putting actual beehives all over the border.

But the honey produced by loudspeakers is not good.

Re: Elephants are scared around bees

#33
post #2

More than once I had flies flying full speed into my nose and get trapped there! If I was an elephant with a nose bigger than a Henry hover sucking stinging flies I would be scared too!

Yeah - that was my first thought .. A bee sting inside your trunk would be no joke !

Re: Elephants are scared around bees

#34
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additional net effect: crops were better - fertilized. Random bee fact: each workerbee trip returns ~40mg nectar to the hive. <3 Not Your Beekeeper

> Random bee fact: each workerbee trip returns ~40mg nectar to the hive. And it takes them approximately 1 hour and 1,000 flower visits in order to collect enough nectar or pollen to fill up for the return trip. It is so taxing that the muscles in their wings wear out after around 2 weeks.

Bees live 30-60 days it seems.

Queens live up to 5 years but 2-3 on average, just spawning new ephemeral pods to do work.

Re: Elephants are scared around bees

#36

There’s a brief mention of a study that found that “merely playing recordings of angry bees through speakers in the field was enough to cause the elephants to flee” but it seems like that would be a far cheaper solution than putting actual beehives all over the border.

[dead]

Re: Elephants are scared around bees

#39

If I had a nose large enough for a bunch of bees to fly up and sting, I would be very interested in avoiding bees too.

Well, the average human nose is at least big enough for two bees to fly up and sting.

The average human is pretty scared of bees.

Re: Elephants are scared around bees

#40

My cats have been bitten by various insects more than once and are still not at all "scaredy" around them.

We have three hives in our yard. My dog still gets a kick out of snapping at bees no matter how many times he's stung. He probably gets stung 5-10 times per year while I have only been stung once in 3 years of having the hives in the yard.
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