Beeing Aware of the Cannabis World
Today is National Honey Bee Day. Beekeepers created it to raise awareness of and protection for this tiny creature.
In honor of the day, we present these photos we took in a Southern Humboldt cannabis nursery garden last August 20th where male marijuana plants were cultivated to create seeds (a long ways away from any female plants). Hundreds of honey bees swarmed the twenty or so plants for over a week leaving only when they were so laden down with pollen they could hold no more.
To be clear, this is not the same as gathering the resin of the female flower which a Frenchman calling himself Nicolas Trainerbees claims to do though that has not been scientifically proven. These are bees gathering the male pollen.
We’ve never seen this behavior before. Have you?
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Interesting. Thanks Kym!
My only reference point is the 2 foreign men who wanted to lease property I know about, to grow cannabis, and to set up bee hives (presumably to do something similar to what this story suggests).
I have heard that bees can create honey with (CBD?) properties which can be another method of delivery for the healing aspects of cannabis.
Who knows more???
Bee’s eat pollen to create Royal jelly. It’s fed to bee larva to create a new Queen bee.
They don’t usually collect cannabis pollen though according to online sources as it doesn’t usually contain the food they need. I’ve only found one India based reference to bees collecting cannabis pollen.
Took this pic a few days ago…in my cbd males
That is so cool! I wondered if this wasn’t more common than showed on the net. I suspected that people just need to start posting about this.
I had bees all over my males 2 years ago.
They sure liked it in the ditch weed in kansas
Because the plants are skunky, the bees may be gathering the pollen to make propylis.
https://www.drweil.com/health-wellness/balanced-living/wellness-therapies/what-are-the-benefits-of-bee-propolis/
From wiki on honey extraction:
“Some beekeepers will also harvest (before uncapping the honey) the propolis, a resinous material bees gather to glue the frames together; propolis is used for its medicinal properties.”
I used to work for a honey company so learned a lot about it as a commodity but also as a health-beneficial natural product. The two brothers who owned the company used propylis throat lozenges for sore throats and other preparations for other treatments.
It may well be that the people with the bees are aware of the properties of propylis and will be using the cappings (which contain the propylis) for specialized preparations.
It’s a long held belief (not sure about the science behind it) that eating honey from plants to which a person is allergic to the pollen will help them develop an immunity.
Honey has been used since record history (and that includes pictograms in Egyptian
tombs) for healing. It can seal a wound and prevent infection, it’s a natural humectant so it keeps the wound moist and maintains the natural body ph.
And from the right pollen source, it takes good. (Not lima beans. They make for an acrid back of the mouth taste, however sweet the honey is.)
I had mentioned the ‘skunk’ odor. There are various insects which will try to attack a hive (a type of wasp in particular but I don’t know if they’re found in California).
Bees are very intelligent creatures (we’re still catching up with understanding why they do things, like the dance that tells where the flowers are) so it may well be that the local bees have determined that the pollen from weed plants is beneficial to them. They are very selective (if you’ve ever watched bees ‘work’ a field of wild flowers and seen what they favored and what they left for last) and I imagine there are other pollen sources available in the area, so maybe bees know things about the plant than we do.
Honey bees regularly collect cannabis pollen, but fortunately they are not attracted to the female plant.
Hope the wind’s not blowing towards your neighbors
These are good bees thay are makeing specal plant specis for latter
I’ve definitely seen bees all over male plants. It’s ‘a thing’ they do. Sounds like some exploration into the honey would be really interesting. Anyone interested let me know! I have quite a few males in full flower rn.
I love Bees!
They bee doing the same thing in trinity co.
You don’t want to have female plants anywhere in the neighborhood of bees taking pollen from male plants.That is a stupid idea.I know from experience.
Yes. I had a male garden far in the woods where this happened. It was two years ago. I went out to cut branches one day and the honey bees were all over the plants collecting pollen.
I have definitely seen this behavior with honeybees before. A neighbor called me last year here in Salmon Creek asking if it was common since his male plants were covered with them. Bees collect pollen from hundreds of different types of flowers. Why not cannabis?
The honeybee CBD/pollen/propolis connection could be a special medicine to look into further. Propolis salve cured my daughters eczema. It supposedly has powerful antibacterial and anti-fungal properties.
Great article!
Thanks Kym
Thanks for the info, Kyle.
Unrelated to this article, but fyi kym;
http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/marijuana/article_fc613990-8226-11e7-8a95-1fa664a63089.html
Trinity’s comnercial pot emergency ordinance just went down the drain .
Over 500 permits had been recieved by the county (the max they were going to allow ).
Trinity now reverts to old personal use ordinances.
Another story I needed to write and couldn’t squeeze in….