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Cannabis And Bees – Do They Benefit From Each Other?
Jan
Bees are an important part of our ecosystem. They’re responsible for pollinating crops such as apples, broccoli, cotton, cucumbers and more. In fact, the food in one out of every three bites that you eat was pollinated by bees. They pollinate $15 billion worth of US crops a year. It’s no secret that the bee population has been on a steady decline due to pesticides commonly used on crops, but can cannabis help save this dying breed?
Do cannabis and bees benefit from each other?
A study done at Cornell University and published in the journal of Environmental Entomology shows that bees are drawn to the cannabis plant because of it’s extremely sweet pollen. This would support the theory that scientists could save the bee population around the world by planting more cannabis plants in areas that bees could easily access.
The study showed that the taller the marijuana plants were, the more bees would gravitate towards them. The taller cannabis plants attracted 17x more bees than shorter ones. There are 16 different types of the cannabis plant that could be used to attract bee populations.
Can bees get high from the marijuana plant?
Although bees seem to love the sweet nectar from the cannabis plant, they cannot get high off of it. So don’t worry, there won’t be a bunch of stoned bees flying around. Insects don’t have any naturally occurring cannabinoid receptors like humans have, so it would be impossible for them to react to THC or CBD.
How can cannabis help the bee population?
Unlike other flowers that bees are normally attracted to, cannabis doesn’t have a nectary taste or bright colors. Bees are naturally more attracted to the flowering male cannabis plants that grow next to the flowering female ones. The female cannabis plants produce the buds that we all know and love.
Cannabis could be a great tool to increase the bee population once again, since cultivators generally don’t use too many pesticides on them (or none at all). Pesticides are the reason the bee populations has dropped so much in recent years. Cannabis plants also don’t require a lot of water to grow, which is another benefit. So will we live in a world where weed and bees can coexist in harmony? We can only hope for the best, but with more and more places around the world accepting marijuana, it seems like we are on the right path. Now that’s something to buzz about!
If you’re interested in learning more about cannabis and CBD, check out our daily blog! There, you’ll find other articles like:
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