A Cordon of Hives

[Images: From The Elephants & Bees Project "Beehive Fence Construction Manual" (PDF)].

Designing for humans, insects, and elephants at the same time, University of Oxford zoologist Lucy King has developed "the honey fence system," Edible Geography explains.

[Images: Via The Elephants & Bees Project].

A honey fence is "a series of hives, suspended at ten-metre intervals from a single wire threaded around wooden fence posts. If an elephant touches either a hive or the wire, all the bees along the fence line feel the disturbance and swarm out of their hives in an angry, buzzing cloud."

"By encircling a village with a cordon of hives," we read, "the village’s crops are protected."

Read more at Edible Geography.

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Blogger Kristin said...

Any information about how it handles wind? Would that vibrate the hives as well?

December 08, 2015 2:40 AM  
Blogger Apelido Nym said...

RE: Kristin, I suspect that many bee hives typically rock in the wind a bit anyway. I wonder if there's a certain type of motion they don't worry about, or respond to as quickly.

Total uninformed speculation.

December 10, 2015 1:56 PM  

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