By Elias Marat / TheMindUnleashed.com / Jan. 17, 2020
Bees are major fans of hemp and a recent study has found that the taller the hemp plants are the larger the number of bees that will flock to it.
The new research, spearheaded by researchers at Cornell University and published last month in Environmental Entomology, shows that humans aren’t the only fans of weed. The findings also reinforce a study published last year at Colorado State University that discovered the same thing.
The study shows how bees are highly attracted to cannabis due to the plant’s plentiful stores of pollen, and it could pave the way for scientists to figure out new ways to support their struggling population as well as floral populations.
According to the study, the greater the area covered by the hemp plant the greater the chance that bees will swarm to the area. Additionally, those hemp plants that are taller have a much greater likelihood of attracting bees with the tallest plants attracting a stunning 17 times more bees than the shortest plants.
The study also found that as time went on greater amounts of bees visited the hemp plots on a more frequent basis. It sounds almost like the word-of-mouth effect among humans who hear about great deals at a dispensary, no?
The researchers also discovered that hemp, a major cash crop with multiple applications, can support no less than 16 different varieties of bees in the northeastern United States.
The findings may seem strange considering that cannabis doesn’t produce the sweet, sugary nectar that your typical floral varieties produce to attract insects. Nor does hemp flower come in the dazzling array of bright colors that likewise attract bugs. However, the pollen produced by male flowers is highly attractive to the 16 bee subspecies in the study for reasons that remain unknown.
Female flowers—the kind that humans like to smoke for its intoxicating and soothing effects—are basically ignored by bees since they don’t produce any actual flowers.
The study’s author’s wrote:
“The rapid expansion of hemp production in the United States… may have significant implications for agroecosystem-wide pollination dynamics.
As a late-season crop flowering during a period of seasonal floral dearth, hemp may have a particularly strong potential to enhance pollinator populations and subsequent pollination services for crops in the following year by filling gaps in late-season resource scarcity.”
What makes the findings so compelling is the crucial impact it could have on suffering bee populations across the United States.
Bee are perhaps one of the most important managed pollinators in U.S. agriculture. Spreading the male sex cells of flowers to their female counterparts in a natural process that is highly crucial to plant reproduction.
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, pollinators are worth anywhere from $235 and $577 billion worldwide owing to their pivotal role in the production of global crops. In the U.S. alone this means that bees are responsible for $20 billion of domestic crop production. Without bees we can kiss almonds, blueberries, watermelon, and other crops goodbye.
The authors of the study made clear that the combination of bees plus hemp won’t mean that folks should worry about cannabinoid-rich pollen sneaking it into their diets nor will the bees start producing honey enriched with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—as nice as that sounds.
Likewise, the presence of cannabinoids like THC in hemp pollen is “not likely to have an impact on bee development due to the loss of cannabinoid receptors in insects.”
So while we often like to focus on the recreational or medicinal use of marijuana—in its edible, smokeable, and vape-able forms—this new research shows that the plant can in fact help nature and agriculture in amazingly important ways.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Yep, my small outdoor medical garden in these badly degraded-by-logging mountains have brought back at least 4 different types of bees every year that I didn’t see in the first few years. From tiny little brown fuzzies the size of my little finger’s fingernail to the much larger yellow & black Bumbles, all that just seem to love hanging out during flowering time.
No poisons sprayed on the garden, either. And the 8-acre property around the garden has been chemical-free, too, instead using bio-control on invasive weeds (like Chinese Knapweed) for the last 15 years. I’ve also planted and spread seeds, along with the native plants/flowers that have come back in a big way in the open areas between the firs and pines, so the different bee species have a smorgasbord that hasn’t existed for…I don’t know how many years. The late Spring smell that hits me walking down to the mailbox is what a perfume factory must be like but underlaid with a low-grade buzzing you can literally hear if you stop and listen.
That knapweed had killed everything but the knapweed weevils knocked it back to 5-10% so there is plenty of healthy growth now.
I’ve never been stung by a bee bouncing around the buds but unfortunately the people-introduced yellow jacket wasps also seem to like them and I have been stung by those angry hostile devils many times. But growing cannabis makes bees happy and it makes me happy, too, so it looks like a win-win situation.
This year I’ve been asked by a beekeeper who wants to put a hive or two in the southeast corner. For a portion of the honey? You bet! Another win-win situation.
sealintheSelkirks
So I got this one auto flower weed plant in my green house. It’s my only weed plant with buds. It is all the way female. No male flowers no pollen. Every day around the same time a single bee visits and rubs itself all over the buds….the same bee every time…i can tell because it has a unique injury on one of its legs… Furthermore it’s completely obsessed over it. If I have it outside my greenhouse to get extra sun it still visits….circles around the spot where it should be gets upset and flys in and out the greenhouse over and over. I’m so confused by this. Is it getting high? Is it damaging anything? There are plenty of flowers that produce nectar and pollen all over my yard. Wth does it think it’s doing? Is it hurting the bee and its hive because it’s just wasting time? I can’t find any answers.
I occasionally get bees that will drift through the girls in the garden but only during flowering, so it’s not all that unusual to see them rubbing against a top. Only 2 of the species here do that, though, the other two I know of don’t bother them at all. I grow outdoor until it’s time to light dep them, then they go in and out the rest of the season so I have to be careful to not bring the bees in (no greenhouse, a portion of my shop is under a hooded ceramic metal halide light in the ceiling).
I’ve got 11 going this year, 5 different strains (most sativa x), and all in veg still so mostly what I’m seeing at this point are yellow jackets bopping around the leaves. The bees (LOTS of them this year) are busy all over the property with the carpet of flowers that has come up from a very wet Spring. The bees did a credible job pollinating the old Jonathon apple tree this year, too, since there’s a bunch of mini apples spread through the branches.
Doesn’t get a bee stoned to happily roll in a flowering top so don’t worry, you aren’t contributing to the BUZZ of a Minor bee! But if there happens to be a male plant somewhere nearby, within maybe 1/4 mile, you could be in trouble. That’s one of the fears of growing outdoor.
Let the bee have his fun. I get the same reactions from the first hummingbirds of the Spring as you are getting from the bee! Where’s my STUFF?
sealintheSelkirk
I only recently learned the fact that bees are very important insects for us. I never could have thought that if the bees die out, it will lead to the end of the world for all living things. We need to remember this! I’m glad that this topic is being researched, and I’m glad that they like marijuana) it’s not for nothing that its business is flourishing here! my dad once had an apiary. It’s so cool to have homemade honey at home and drink tea with it! I wish the bees good luck, we need to take care of them. Many thanks to the author of the article! This information needs to be disseminated!
Good article and this really brings the term “buzzed” to a whole new level.