# Did Ancient Man Employ Bees To Ward Off Elephants?



## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Its a fun idea. I would expect hunter/gatherers were exploiting honey long before they had a problem with elephants. That would have come with farming.

You could see the elephant deterrence a the good side of defensive African bees. Hurling hives would no doubt result in the release of a lot of defensive recruiting pheromones on the target. But the hurler would have to be pretty danged tough. I wonder if there are some herbal approaches to reducing the sting problem. Lemon grass maybe? "Bee suits" made by smearing the bee-handler with light-colored mud?

All I can say first-hand is that we've had no elephant problems since we got bees, buuuuut .....


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Bushmen are nomadic hunter gatherers who do not grow crops, it is also doubtful if anyone in Africa was growing crops 9,000 years ago.

However people (not bushmen in this case) with primitive tools are certainly capable of successfully hunting elephants, as shown in this old, but very awesome video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A5wEO8BXBY


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Because plant based material does not preserve well in the archaeological 
evidence, we have no means of knowing whether or not late Pleistocene 
and early Holocene foragers in the East, Central, and South Africa collected 
plants or practiced a more horticulture type behavior. It is possible according 
to archaeologists that they may have practiced some type of limited horticulture. 

Joe


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It can be determined or at least a good guess made, by looking at the tools they had if any can be found. On this basis it appears the earliest attempts at serious crop farming were in the Middle East.

However it just depends how you interpret crop farming or agriculture. For example there are people in the Amazon jungle who move around collecting from various areas seasonally. But they are careful to re - seed some of the plants they eat but the rest of the time these plants grow wild and unattended in the jungle. most early people likely had the smarts to do this kind of thing but whether on a level in 9,000 year old Africa to need to employ bees to protect crops from elephants, who knows.

To me the pic could just be depicting times of plenty. Elephant meat, and honey.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The links don't work for me. I get "no records found".


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

You have to assume that these bush men want to brew some booze. If there was any type of agriculture 9000 years ago you can BET it was to make booze. That was used to purify water...necessity.
Put into that context it is completely feasible that them bush men had figured out a way to keep elephants from eating their hooch crop.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

A check up how bushmen live will show they have many ways to get water. They can see a damp patch, put a straw in to suck it out, and store it in hollowed ostridge eggs. They also no what plants they can dig up and crack open to get a rink, much of their time is spent in places with no readily available water. 

For an entertaining film showing something of how Bushmen live, check out "The Gods must be Crazy".


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Sorry, all I get is "record not found". But I did search for what you are referring to and I think I found them. A lot of it is abstract which makes it difficult to say. But apparently there was some connection between the bees and the elephants. Of course we now know that bees buzzing scares off elephants. We also know that elephants can make a mess of a village as well as a garden...


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Michael Bush said:


> Sorry, all I get is "record not found". But I did search for what you are referring to and I think I found them. A lot of it is abstract which makes it difficult to say. But apparently there was some connection between the bees and the elephants. Of course we now know that bees buzzing scares off elephants. We also know that elephants can make a mess of a village as well as a garden...


Hi Mike,

Sorry, bout the links.

Here are the images of the rock art.

















Best Wishes
Joe


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Sorry, bout the links.

Maybe it has something to do with my browser, I don't know.

Yes, those are the ones I did the search on. Thanks. I love cave paintings of bees...


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

>> >Sorry, bout the links.
>> >Maybe it has something to do with my browser, I don't know.

I doubt it is a browser issue. I think what is going on is that the "search results" as linked by _naturebee_ are transient. The host webserver retained the search results for some defined period, then recycled the results file, making it unavailable to those that come along later.

The solution to this issue is to post a direct link to the JPG itself, as was done in post #10.


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