Farmers, Elephants, and Bees
animals.oreilly.com
animals.oreilly.com
Still, it's neat to have a fence that's a potential source of profit if managed efficiently and depending on local prices. Elephant related cost savings will subsidize the cost of bee-keeping.
True, but you can decide your tradeoff: if you don't want or need much honey, don't gather it. The bees will be healtier as well, as a result.
That's more than likely, and there's probably an international manuka craze on top of it: my (euro) grocery has a bunch of the usual blended "flower honey" and manuka, and that's it. Manuka is the first monofloral honey I've found outside of specialized or semi-specialized shops[0] (which is a shame).
[0] well not exactly, (false) Acacia is a fairly common one as well due to its physical characteristics: it's very clear and stays liquid for a very long time so it's an easy sell. But it's even blander and nondescript than blended
And now you've replaced a fence that they can break through with a fence made of bees. Yes, this is probably good for the humans, but I don't see how it's better for the elephants.
Well, now they don't get shot, presumably.
And few people would be verynpleased with an elephant going through their crops.
>> If an elephant makes contact with one of the hives or the connecting wires, the beehives all along the fence will swing and release the bees.
The first part made it sound like elephants would stay away from this perimeter just because there was an active beehive, so it's unlikely the elephant would get close to the fence anyway. But then if it does, wouldn't the sudden release of all bees drive the elephant into a panic precisely when it's choices are to run into the field or away from the fence? Or am I just misunderstanding something?
It's also possible the elephant doesn't stomp through the fence, but simply meanders toward it until it feels the wire. After which some of the bees come out and the elephant simply decides to not break through the wire and to instead return from where it came.
It seems that fences are set up to prevent elephants from entering entirely. Although they are spaced widely (and a weak breakaway trip wire is strung from hive to hive), so that if an elephant is trapped, or approaches the fence violently, it can still pass through without damaging the hives.
I'm guessing that has to do with their 85% effectiveness. Most of the time the fences work, but when they don't they want to minimize hive damage.
'The recognition and financial support will enable us to expand our vital research work and protect many more rural farming families from elephant invasions.'
I was friends at university with Lucy - she's amazing and the success and expansion of this work will definitely be her main motivator. She's doing it because she adores elephants and spending the money on protecting even more of them will be her main priority.
Like all 'overnight successes' (she's been working on this for over 10 years) it's the result of many years of tough grind and convincing skeptical people you have a viable idea. It's great to she's getting the recognition she deserves.
Profit for the sake of profit works as signalling just as well as any other profit.
Markets should be designed to reward people who produce and serve others well. When a market rewards someone or a group of people for producing and serving well, it should not be demonized. If what they are producing or serving is counter to the good of society then society must adapt laws and regulations to prevent those products and services from being distributed.
To pretend that a bee fence deserves more reward from the market than a soft drink formula simply because it makes you feel better inside is not a sustainable economic model.
Society adopting laws and regulations depends on there being a respectable society to being with. Laws will only get you as far as their enforcement. It's incredibly easy to take advantage of a poorer person than yourself just because you have the upper hand. I'm not talking the difference between bee farms and soft drinks, I'm talking the difference between helping farmers set up these fences themselves and forcing farmers to set these up while demanding half their profits forever in return. But you completely understand that, don't you?
The phrase "because it makes" shows that you are going to stop being pointless unless you have a valid argument to bring to the table. To quote The Big Lebowski: You're not wrong, you're just an asshole.
Take a look at your average soup-kitchen volunteer - they're the kind of people we need.
Secondly, there is a non-trivial cost to thinking up ideas and experimenting. Beyond costing time and resources that the farmers may not have/may not want to spend, experimenting as a whole is pretty risking. Being an outside player with far greater ability to take on risk has an obvious advantage.
Thirdly, while the farmers probably don't want to fight elephants, in the scheme of things, they probably individually rate the well being of elephants lower than their survival. We on the other hand probably rate the importance of the two far more equally, and thus have a greater incentive to solve the problem in such a way.
Here's an idea that took someone 30 years to come up with.
(http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94996/GLOBAL-Follow-the-fizz-...)
But it's really obvious! Why wasn't anyone doing this before?
For many locals, just shooting the elephants would be the solution. Outsiders care about the elephants and the humans (most of the times, in that order).
That being said I am sure the farmers understand the risks more than I do, if they are down with it seems like a good solution
Elephants which are more than 10 times as big as a person with a much thicker hide are not 'paranoid' of bees. Their fear is well justified.
But it is still possible to safely and enjoyably keep and tend Africanized bees -- you just require some extra precautions, like smoking the hell out of them when you're working the hive, and leaving your protective gear on even after you're far from the hive.
A friend of mine did beekeeping in Paraguay through the Peace Corps (the last country featuring a Peace Corps beekeeping program), and said bees would still be ramming his face veil, even after walking several kilometers away from the hive.
That was, however, after he had been working them for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Generally bees don't bother you if you're not bothering them. And if they do, you might just wear a veil when harvesting the crops closest to the fence.
To go from occasionally having an interaction with Elephants, to everyday working your field in close proximity to highly aggressive bees that relatively commonly swarm intruders.. is not a guaranteed win. I don't know enough to evaluate the trade off and I said as much.
Certainly, there is no more risk (from the bees, anyway) to maintaining a bee hive in Africa than one in the US. In fact, I am frequently amazed at how much less protective gear African bee keepers use.
Also, I find that hive bees tend to be generally less aggressive than their wild cousins and can co-exist just fine with people. It is not at all uncommon for hives to be situated on farms or near houses.