Dear TTBOOKlings: The Elephants and the Bees, and Your Bee-Related Corrections

Every week, producers at To The Best Of Our Knowledge assemble a newsletter of our best content from our most recent shows, as well as original stories and behind the scenes insights that give a peek behind the curtain of putting the show together. We’re re-publishing a few of these “Dear TTBOOKlings” notes here on Medium.

This week, producer Shannon Henry Kleiber poses this question: why would elephants be afraid of bees?

One of the largest animals in our natural world is terrified of one of the tiniest creatures. Elephants are fearful of bees. It’s not exactly clear why, especially as it’s debatable whether the bee can actually sting through the tough elephant hide, though they could get to their eyes or other softer parts. Recent research shows when elephants encounter bees, they run away, and send sonic alarm messages to other elephants about the danger. While this sounds kind of sad for the big animals, their fear of bees may actually save them. In Africa, natural beehive fences are being used to keep elephants safe from wandering too far, encountering hunters, or ravaging neighboring farms.

You can learn more about the relationship among bees, elephants and humans here.

This by Lucy King, head of the Human-Elephant Co-Existence Program for Save the Elephants in Nairobi, shows just how much elephants dislike the sounds of bees.

— Shannon

On the left, a wasp. On the right, a honeybee.

Speaking of bees, we heard from quite a few listeners about “Loving Bees,” starting with the fact that there’s quite a visual difference between honeybees and wasps. One that apparently I overlooked in my fervor of looking at awesome photos of bees and wasps.

Listener Adam Porter

Thank you for an interesting set of articles. A small point: I believe the image you are using at the top of the page is not a honey bee. Honey bees tend to have “furry” faces and their eyes are more oval. The image you have may be of a bald face wasp or a hornet, which are less furry and whose eyes are shaped like an “8”.

I’m never too big to own up to mistakes. And thanks to Adam for the great resources on identifying insects!

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