Bees and Elephants- Conservation of the largest land animal using very small neighbors! with Dr. Jody Johnson
Sunday, August 9, 2026
Cost: Free for Members or with Admission
Admission Tickets
Elephants are a keystone species in Tanzania, but they are under serious threat from poaching and from raiding agricultural fields during migration. Bee hive "fences" have been used to mitigate the agriculturally-based human-elephant conflicts, but we are trying to implement a new idea of pollinated food corridors to allow wildlife to survive and migrate adjacent to agricultural lands.
About Jody Johnson
Dr. Josephine (Jody) Johnson has a PhD in toxicology and has spent her research career on bees at the US Department of Agriculture on parasites, pesticide effects, nutritional studies, and electrostatic interactions between bees and flowers. In the last five years, she has been and continues to be engaged in a project in Tanzania in which honey bee hives are installed to deter migrating African elephants from raiding village croplands, thereby avoiding deadly human-elephant conflicts. Recently retired from teaching college classes in environmental science, chemistry, physical science, world pollinators, and sustainability, she has spoken at conferences nationally and internationally, and currently maintains a personal apiary of 21 hives.