- Human/Elephant conflicts have become much more of an issue in the last decade. The increase in Human populations mixed with Elephant’s inquisitive nature means the number of crop raiding incidents have increased. This short film illustrates the main solution for this issue, based upon a discovery made a few years ago. I love how this solution provided a level of integration between both the farmers and the community, while allowing both Human and Elephant life to peacefully coexist.
Members of the Njokomoni farmers head down to the few remaining bee fences that haven’t been harvested yet. This particular fence contains 130 bee hives.
The farmers and part of the STEP team standing next to one of the bee hives they’re about to harvest. As shown on the outside of each hive, the they are funded by UNESCO and Raleigh international, allowing farmers to receive all the support they need in building and maintaining the bee fences.
African honey bees have a reputation for being more aggressive than European honey bees. Needless to say, the suits were definitely required for harvesting.
The aggressive bees meant that a consistence level of smoke was required during and after harvesting the honey in order to keep them at bay.
African honey bees send out three to four times as many workers in response to a threat, and so ensuring they truly have returned to their hive means setting a small piles of sticks and leaves on fire for 2 minutes to ward them off after the honey has been harvested. Luckily it’s dry season and so they had no trouble getting the fire going.
Unfortunately, not all the bee hives were successful. The bee hive fence around another farm contains beehives that the bees have vacated. After much investigations from both STEP and bee biologists, the reason for their absence is yet to be found.
Visiting the farms sometimes meant walking in some unusual locations. In this case it was a railway! Luckily there is only one train that runs along this stretch once a week.
Travelling to a farm managed by the the head of the Uadilifu farmers group meant driving through vast open landscapes containing massive farms, which can only be managed by irrigation systems that stretch almost as far as the eye could see.
A group photo of the majority of the STEP team, along with two ecologists from the Canada, who visited the bee fence near Mang’ula.
