An assistant prepares bee-smokers for Loise Kawira (not pictured), a Consultant Beekeeper and Trainer for research and conservation organisation, Save the Elephants near Voi town in Taita Taventa County on October 30, 2024, during a routine inspection of the bee colonies at the organisation's apiary in Sagalla village on the fringes of Tsavo-west National Park. Loved by tourists, elephants are loathed by most local farmers, who form the backbone of the nation's economy. Elephant conservation has been a roaring success: numbers in Tsavo rose from around 6,000 in the mid-1990s to almost 15,000 elephants in 2021, according to the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS). But the human population also expanded, encroaching on grazing and migration routes for the herds. Resulting clashes became the number-one cause of elephant deaths, says KWS. But a long-running project by charity Save the Elephants offered her an unlikely solution: deterring some of nature's biggest animals with some of its smallest: African honey bees. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)