Plant More Hemp … Attract More Bees

Planting more hemp could help to maintain and ultimately increase the dwindling bee population according to a study by researchers at Cornell University published earlier this year in Environmental Entomology. These findings reinforce a study from Colorado State University published last year in Elsevier’s Biomass and Bioenergy.

The study showed that bees are highly attracted to the cannabis plant’s plentiful stores of pollen even though cannabis doesn’t produce the sweet, sugary nectar that your typical floral varieties produce to attract insects.

“While hemp does not produce any nectar, the pollen rich nature of the flowers can make hemp an ecologically valuable crop. In addition, access to crucial phytochemicals through pollen and nectar from diverse plant sources is important for improved survival and pathogen tolerance in honey bees. Further studies analyzing the nutritive value of hemp pollen, would provide strong evidence in support of the ecological benefits,” the study concluded.

What makes the findings so compelling is the crucial impact it could have on suffering bee populations across North America.

Bees are one of the most important managed pollinators in agriculture. Spreading the male sex cells of flowers to their female counterparts in a natural process that is highly crucial to plant reproduction.

Size Matters

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 17 times more bees than the shortest plants. It also found that as time went on greater amounts of bees visited the hemp plots on a more frequent basis.

The researchers also discovered that hemp, a major cash crop with multiple applications can support a great variety of bees. The abstract from one of the studies explained that, “A total of 23 different genera of bees were collected of which the European honeybee, Apis mellifera at 38% of the total abundance was the most dominant followed by Melissodes bimaculata at 25% and Peponapis pruinosa at 16%. These three genera made up nearly 80% of the total abundance.”

Integrated Pest Management

However, they did voice concerns that there will be an issue with pests on the crops as the industry expands. This could lead to companies using various pesticides, which will interfere with their ability to pollinate, and could even potentially harm bees.

“Our results documenting bee diversity in flowering hemp provides the impetus for the development of integrated pest management plans that protect pollinators while controlling pests,” the researchers advised.

As cultivation of hemp increases, growers, land managers, and policy makers should consider its value in supporting bee communities and take its attractiveness to bees into account when developing pest management strategies.

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.