Bees love hemp. In fact, according to a new study, the taller the hemp plants are, the larger the number of bees that flock to it.
According to this study, which was published in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy, planting more hemp could help to maintain bee populations that have recently become dangerously low. The recent study was conducted by researchers at the Colorado State University, that set up harm-free traps for bees at big hemp farms throughout the state. They spent approximately five days during peak growing season collecting bees from the several farms to note how many were attracted to the hemp crops.
The new research, conducted by researchers at Cornell University and published in Environmental Entomology, shows that humans aren't the only fans of weed. The findings also reinforce a study published in 2019 at Colorado State University, which discovered the same thing.
The study demonstrates how bees are very attracted to cannabis due to the plant's multiple stores of pollen, and it could perhaps pave the way for scientists to find new ways to help their dieing numbers in addition to floral populations.
The researchers, though, also voiced concerns that there'll be an issue with pests on the crops while the industry expands. That could lead to companies using various pesticides, which will interfere with their ability to pollinate, and could even potentially harm bees.
What makes the findings compelling is the critical impact it could have on suffering bee populations across the United States.
Bees are possibly one of the most significant managed pollinators in American agriculture. Spreading the flowers' male sex cells to their female counterparts in a natural process is highly crucial to plant reproduction.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported that pollinators are worth between $235 and $577 billion across the world owing to their pivotal role in the production of global crops. In the United States alone that means bees are responsible for about $20 billion of domestic crop production. Without bees we can say goodbye to almonds, blueberries, watermelon, and several other crops.
Therefore, while we often tend to spend a lot of time on discussing both the recreational as well as medicinal use of marijuana—in its three forms, that is the edible, smokeable, and vape-able forms— in fact, this newly established research indicates that the plant can in fact assist nature as well as agriculture in incredibly meaningful ways.
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