Hemp and Bees: Field Hemp as a Pollen Source for Bees in the NYS Landscape

Research Question: Does field hemp for grain and fiber provide a provisioning pollen source for bees when fewer agricultural crops are flowering in the NYS landscape?

Project Objectives: Identify how the expansion of industrial hemp in NYS is affecting regional bee communities. Recognize how bee communities on different hemp farms are influenced by variable regional landscapes and crop networks. Methods: Sweep-net and collect flower-visiting bees on 10 farms around Tompkins, Ontario, and Seneca Counties. Analyze and identify bee communities on each farm within crop networks of site-specific landscapes.

Background Information • Pollen is an important food source for

bees and acts as their primary source of protein and fat

• Hemp is wind pollinated • Hemp does not produce floral nectar • Honeybees, bumblebees, and other

native bees visit male hemp flowers, but do not visit female plants

• Field Hemp flowers late in the summer, when other floral resources may be limited in central NYS

Bees Recorded Visiting Hemp Flowers Bombus impatiens (Common Bumblebee), Apis mellifera (Common Honeybee), Lasioglossum spp., Ceratina spp., Helictus spp.,

Hemp Pollinators Study Cornell Entomology, Poveda Lab Nate Flicker, nrf42@cornell.edu

Heather Grab, hlc66@cornell.edu