Bees & Cannabis

Chester · Post by **Chester** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 12:32 pm

This is bizarre, bees have no interest in female cannabis flowers normally.

link: Man trains bees to collect cannabis resin

I've kept honey bees since I was a pup. Bees love male flowers as pollen is "steak" to a honeybee. Nectar is an energy drink and is used to make honey as a energy source to survive cold winters.

The bees won't put the resin into the honey, they'll use it to glue their hive shut.

You can use a propolis trap (plastic screen they'll seal shut with propolis, freeze it, flex it, & poof, you have a pile of resin) to collect your cann-resin, and the only way I can think of for this gentleman to have "trained" the bees to collect resin from the cannabis "flowers" is to have sprayed them with an attractant. Various mint oils or even sugar-water might do.

Intriguing, yet it's nearly as high on the BS meter as an Obama promise.

bentech · Post by **bentech** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 12:45 pm

you seen the "flow" hive chester?

http://www.honeyflow.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

criticism

http://www.honeycolony.com/article/3-re ... flow-hive/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester · Post by **Chester** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:01 pm

Yep, and I'm waiting to see how flow hives will function long-term. My bet is they won't.

In this micro-climate (temperate w/cold winters), I would worry that a flow hive would get sealed to death with all the propolis. You wouldn't believe how much of the stuff they collect late-summer, early fall.

The bees coat the entire inside surface of their hives with propolis. And I'm sure the propolis would not do good things to plastic parts that rely on tight clearances.

The bees generally collect the resins from tree bud tips. In any case, propolis has strong anti-bacterial and anti-fungal actions. Propolis has long been used in natural medicine for wound care. Just mix the resin w/ alcohol, and you can disinfect a wound and leave a healing anti-bacterial residue behind as well.

Chester · Post by **Chester** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:10 pm

btw: I have no interest in using a flow-hive. I'm just curious about how they'll hold-up to the real environment inside a healthy hive.

I'll keep doing things the "old-fashioned" way. Not completely natural, since feral bees choose smaller spaces for their hives,

Yet I am fond of the "wood & wax" approach. Even though I have to replace the wood over time. (I still have a couple tops and 1 box left from starting in 1978, they look old, but....)

bentech · Post by **bentech** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 10:53 pm

i think the flow hive would breed a depleated bee

Post by **Jesús Malverde** » Wed Mar 23, 2016 1:46 pm

I've seen bees on my males a couple of times. Of course nobody grows males any more.

bentech · Post by **bentech** » Wed Mar 23, 2016 6:28 pm

did you watch the video? his female flowers were crawling, bet he sprayed em with a hormone bees like

Post by **Jesús Malverde** » Wed Mar 23, 2016 8:12 pm

Whatever it is, it's likely I don't want to be smoking it.

bentech · Post by **bentech** » Wed Mar 30, 2016 2:25 pm

hey chester,
have you hadany experience with hive colapse?

Prawn Connery · Post by **Prawn Connery** » Thu Mar 31, 2016 6:54 am

If they were my buds, those bees would be stuck like fucking fly paper.

What about the hydrogen peroxide in honey, Chester? Would that not oxidize the cannabinoids?