 A study by scientists at Colorado State University’s Department of Soil and Crop Sciences found that hemp could play an important role in saving the rapidly dwindling world bee population.
In 2006, beekeepers first began reporting the sudden disappearance of entire colonies of bees, which have continued to vanish each year. Last year alone commercial beekeepers in the U.S. lost nearly 40% of all of their honeybee colonies. The loss of pollinators like honey bees could mean a tremendous loss of food crops around the world. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s Director General, José Graziano da Silva, said, "The absence of bees and other pollinators would wipe out coffee, apples, almonds, tomatoes and cocoa to name just a few of the crops that rely on pollination.” The loss of bee colonies is credited to a combination of factors, including intensive agriculture, pesticides use, biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change. The Colorado State University scientists, who published their findings in the Biomass and Bioenergy Journal, found that hemp could not only help prevent the dying off of bee colonies, but hemp could also help maintain species diversity. Despite the fact that hemp does not contain nectar, it is very rich in pollen. It’s also a very hardy plant which flourishes with little to no pesticides. Because of these reasons, the researchers found that hemp made an ideal home for bees, and they were able to verify 23 different types of bees found on wind pollinated hemp plants. The study concluded that adding hemp to existing crops would enable farmers to see a significant improvement in their own crops from more and healthier bees. It would also help end the world wide honey bee crisis. Comments are closed.
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