Call them Canna-Bees. How cannabis helps the bees and vice versa.

by druginc

Call them Canna Bees. How cannabis helps bees and vice versa.

Today is May 16, World Bee Day. Either the day of the bee. And in this case the bee and cannabis. Researchers say bees use cannabis to de-stress. And entrepreneurs say honey from “stoner” bees is the next big thing.

The relationship between bees and cannabis is making headlines in both the scientific and entrepreneurial world. And it can still be a very suitable match.

For example, there has recently been an experiment that shows that hemp may be a necessary pollen source for stressed bees. And an Israeli company is selling honey from bees fed cannabidiols.

Both represent unusual but bee related stories, even according to the standards of an insect that over the years for many special stories en unsolved mysteries took care.

The good news for bees is that the marijuana industry can offer them a necessary source of pollen. The good news for the marijuana industry is that bees can give the industry interesting new products.

Bees and hemp

A researcher in Colorado (USA) recently discovered that bees have visited hemp fields in Rocky Mountain State, apparently using hemp plants as a source of pollen for the months just after or towards the end of the summer.

In an article presented in November at an entomology (insect study) conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Colton O'Brien, a student at Colorado State University, reported that during an experiment in the month of August, representatives of as many as 23 different bee species have been identified.

The project was essentially started because of an observation: “You walk through fields and you hear buzzing everywhere”, said O'Brien at the conference. He even mentioned his article, "What's with all that buzz?"

To find out why, O'Brien conducted a study at two experimental hemp farms in northern Colarado, where hemp blooms between late July and early September. That bloom comes at a time when other crops have completed their flowering period, leading to a lack of nutritional sources for pollinators such as bees.

This can cause bees to become stressed while trying to find pollen sources. Bees need pollen to feed their young.

Now the hemp. While hemp plants don't produce nectar, they do produce a lot of pollen. “Hemp thus becomes a valuable pollen source for foraging food-seeking bees, making it potentially of strong ecological value,” the report said.

O'Brien and his team recommended that better pest control policies be introduced for hemp, given its potential importance in maintaining bee health - a point of attention that has played with researchers worldwide for many years.

But when it comes to bees that help cannabis, it becomes much more special than that.

Meet the Cannabeez and the Cannahoney honey

In 2016, a French beekeeper trained bees to make honey using the resin from the cannabis plant, according to Science Explorer. Nicolas Trainer, a marijuana lawyer and advocate who has used medical marijuana to deal with hyperactivity since childhood, became interested in combining the health benefits of honey with those of cannabis.

Over time, he trained some of his bees to collect resin from cannabis and use it in their hive. Eventually the bees used the cannabis resin in the hives and made what he called "cannahoney". He believes the cannahoney may be even better than other marijuana products. "Everything that goes through a bee's body has improved," he told the Science Explorer.

That is the same position taken by PhytoPharma, an Israeli company that developed “cannabeez”. According to a recent article by Sarah Brittany in Somerset Forbes the bees get a small amount of cannabidiols and they produce honey according to the company, has the health benefits of CBD infused items without the infused part.

Instead, it is made entirely by bees. The product provides pain relief, sleep support and stress and anxiety relief, according to PhytoPharma, without the "intoxicating effects or chemical interference".

Read the full article on GreenEntrepreneur (EN, source)

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