Bees and hemp: the potential behind hemp honey

HANAFSAN founder & CEO Dr. Daniel Feurstein was able to see for himself during the meeting with his agricultural partner Wälderkrut. The hemp field there was in full bloom, and it was buzzing and humming with busy bees! When the beekeeper happened to stop by, everyone was thrilled that the bees obviously love the hemp and can surely create a wonderfully genuine hemp honey from the nectar of the countless blossoms – a brilliant idea that definitely should be tried! And not only could we humans enjoy another aspect of this versatile plant with a hemp honey creation, but our bees, who have a hard time nowadays, would also be helped. We owe them not only the fine honey but without the diligent pollinators, we would have very little to harvest. A lushly blooming hemp field offers the bees a rich and reliable food source, especially during a time of year when other flowering plants become rather scarce. The spring and fruit blossom is over, fruits are growing on trees and shrubs, and the colorful, flower-rich meadows, as far as they still exist here, have already been mowed. And while most plants often bloom for only a few days, hemp does so over a long period of several weeks. This makes it a real alternative food resource for our bees and the beekeepers who have to feed their colonies with sugar water depending on the weather and season.

Project “Lusatia Sativa”: Hemp in the Lusatian Brown Coal Mining Area

With the project “Lusatia Sativa” (Latin for Lusatia and hemp), LEAG, Germany’s second-largest electricity producer, is looking for new business ideas in the region after the end of brown coal mining and is bringing the hemp plant and Lusatian farmers on board with the cultivation of industrial hemp. And there, too, people wonder whether the bees will fly to Lusatian hemp? Even experienced beekeepers are breaking new ground with hemp honey – there is neither real literature nor experience on this because the cultivation of hemp has only been possible again since 1996 after a long strict ban. So it’s high time to explore new paths! Where coal was once mined, hemp is now growing on various plots for the second year. Whether the experiment with the bees will succeed remains to be seen – when the hemp has finished blooming and the bees have made something from its nectar... hopefully a fine hemp blossom honey. So it remains exciting for the Lusatian hemp honey pioneers!

Bee Training for Cannabis Honey in France

The French beekeeper and self-proclaimed cannabis activist Nicolas Trainer pursues a different goal. His bees fly in fields with medical cannabis, and to combine the valuable components of honey with the medical properties of cannabis, he trains his bees to collect the resin of the hemp flowers and make honey from it. It took several years before he was successful, and to immediately deflate critics, he further researched whether collecting cannabinoids harms the bees. It does not, because insects do not possess an endogenous endocannabinoid system like humans and other mammals, so the cannabinoids from the hemp plant have no effect on them – and perhaps some bees would enjoy a “relaxed evening” in the hive after a truly labor-intensive day! Thus, the creamy golden-green cannabis honey, if it can overcome all legal hurdles, remains reserved for us humans and is supposed to enhance the effect of medical cannabis varieties as probably the world’s first edible based purely on cannabis! The hemp honey range is also to be supplemented with honey from hemp varieties with a high CBD content.

The Long History of Honey and Its Significance for Us Humans

For us, honey is a matter of course, on the breakfast table and as a healthy alternative for sweetening many foods and drinks. However, it was quite different in the past. For centuries, honey was a rarity as the only available sweetener and because of its high nutritional value – “liquid gold” in the truest sense of the word! No wonder it was also used as an offering and grave gift, goods were paid with honey, and it was one of the most important trade goods. The ancient Egyptians saw it as the “food of the gods,” and a pot of honey was worth a donkey! Even Stone Age people appreciated it, and its use is impressively documented with cave paintings of “honey hunters” over 9,000 years old. However, the bears’ sweet tooth back then was their downfall because honey was also used as a tempting lure in hunting!
Presumably in Anatolia, people began keeping bees deliberately in the 7th century to obtain the precious honey, and to this day, they are the only insects officially recognized as pets. When the first alternative sweeteners appeared in the Middle Ages, honey fell into the background. However, cane sugar was still very expensive and affordable only for the rich nobility for a long time. Only with the industrial production of beet sugar in the 19th century did honey lose its importance as the main sweetener once and for all.

Superfood Honey: Vitamins, Enzymes & Trace Elements

Because honey and hemp are real superfoods. It is full of valuable ingredients, from different types of sugars and natural aromas to enzymes and vitamins to important trace elements, depending on which blossoms the bees visited at what time of year. Hippocrates, the most famous doctor of antiquity, was already convinced of the medical and performance-enhancing effects of honey in 400 BC. He prescribed fever-reducing honey ointments and “doped” participants in the ancient Olympic Games with honey water! And as “natural cosmetics,” it was popular not only in face masks and bath additives with Cleopatra, who was admired by all for her flawless beauty.
Today, honey is affordable for everyone and for most of us, it is nothing special anymore. It doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves of the incredible effort the bees put into our beloved sweet treat. To produce a 500g jar of honey, the forager bees fly out of the hive about 40,000 times, and if you add up their flight distances, they have flown roughly three times around the Earth!

Image source: © HANAFSAN

Sources:
HANAFSAN: Observations during various collaborations with farmers from the region (2018-2026, ongoing).
www.kommunikationpur.com
www.honig-und-bienen.de
www.leag.de