Honey is a controversial food among both vegetarians and vegans, with some considering it acceptable while others avoid it due to ethical concerns. Most vegans do not eat honey because they believe it exploits bees, who produce honey as a food source to sustain their colony over winter. Honey is produced by bees and stored in hives that double as a home for the bees, making it counted as a product.
In the plant-based world, honey is not considered vegan, but some vegans choose to eat it. While most vegans do not include honey in their diet, some people who consider themselves vegans do eat honey. The National Library of Medicine states that the vegetarian diet may include eggs, dairy, and honey. Honey’s pollen isn’t considered meat, so vegetarians don’t eat honey.
However, honey production does not align with The Vegan Society’s definition of veganism, which seeks to exclude cruelty and exploitation. Honey production involves the use of non-human animals, making it not suitable for vegans. People following a vegan lifestyle avoid honey, as it is an animal product and therefore not vegan.
Some people following a plant-based diet have no objection to consuming honey. Most vegans do not eat honey because they believe it exploits bees, but honeybees produce nectars from plant and tree sources, making them all 100% vegetarian. In conclusion, honey is not considered vegan by most vegans, but some vegans may still consume it if they are vegan.
📹 Why don’t vegans eat honey?
TODAY’S VIDEO: Why don’t vegans consume honey? And is there an ethical and environmentally friendly way to consume honey …
Do vegetarians eat honey?
Honey is considered vegetarian by the Vegetarian Resource Group, as the pollen in honey is not considered meat. This means that vegetarians do not need to worry about accidentally consuming any animal products. The debate over whether honey is a vegetarian food has been ongoing for years, with passionate opinions on both sides. While some argue that honey cannot be included in a strict vegetarian or vegan diet, the reality is not as simple.
Can I call myself vegan if I eat honey?
The debate surrounding the vegan lifestyle has been ongoing, with some people claiming to be vegan because they don’t feel they are harming chickens. The Vegan Society defines veganism as a way of living that excludes all forms of exploitation and cruelty to animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Honey is another area where this definition is not met. The Society states that honey is made by bees for bees, and their health can be sacrificed when harvested by humans. However, harvesting honey does not correlate with the Vegan Society’s definition of veganism, which seeks to exclude not just cruelty but also exploitation.
Some vegans do use bee products, and there are different types of beekeeping, such as balanced beekeeping, where excess honey is removed from the hive, and natural beekeeping, where keepers leave the hive alone. Whether a vegan who eats honey from a balanced beekeeper is still a vegan is entirely down to perspective. Some vegan journalists, like Aine Carlin, can understand why some self-proclaimed vegans have no issue in purchasing local, raw honey.
Infighting within the vegan community is not uncommon, as seen with Impossible Foods’ “bleeding” Impossible Burger, which faced backlash from some for using heme, a key ingredient, as a vegan alternative. The company faced the dilemma of testing it on rats in the hope of earning FDA approval, but it did. Impossible Foods justified its decision by drawing attention to the potential billions of animals that could be saved by producing the beef-like Impossible Burger for the masses.
Vegan blogger Jessica Hoar highlighted the divide in the vegan community caused by some accepting nothing less than the perfect application of the definition of veganism. She noted that if we don’t get our act together soon, the movement will never make the impact we crave or the change the animals need. While honey consumption is not always ethical or fit with the definition of veganism, most would agree that the main focus of the vegan movement is to promote the accessibility of plant-based foods and save the billions of factory-farmed animals who are slaughtered every year. Focusing on whether some people occasionally consume honey from balanced beekeepers seems an ineffective use of valuable time.
What percent of vegans eat honey?
A poll found that 20% of vegans see no conflict with eating honey, raising the question of whether any honey can truly be considered ethical. A niche for ethical honey exists among conscious consumers seeking products with minimal harm, mainly from bee farmers who prioritize bee welfare over profit. These consumers typically buy from balanced, natural, or biodynamic beekeepers, who take honey when there is surplus, create hives mimicking wild bee life, and consider themselves stewards of bees. This excludes commercial honey and ignores the inherent injustice of animal exploitation.
Is honey ever vegan?
Honey is not vegan due to its animal origin, as bees gather nectar from flowers and partially digest it before repurposing it into honeycombs. Bees seal these honeycombs, providing a food source for their hive during winter. However, ethical issues surrounding honey are integral to vegan living. There are several reasons to avoid honey, including its potential health risks and the need for alternative sweeteners.
Can honey be ethical?
Beekeeping practices, such as using sugar syrup as a feedstuff, can be detrimental to the natural behavior of bees and the overall health of bee populations. These practices, even sourced from ethical methods, involve human interference with the natural processes of bees, putting colonies under stress and potentially damaging bee populations. The use of highly interventionist practices, such as manipulating the natural behavior of bees to increase honey yields and reduce costs, can also be detrimental to bee populations.
Additionally, beekeepers often clip the wings of queens to prevent swarming, which is a natural behavior crucial to bee populations’ breeding and lifecycles. Therefore, it is essential to consider ethical vegan alternatives to honey and avoid industrial-scale honey production.
Is Homey vegetarian?
Homey is a leading company in the vegetarian food manufacturing industry, offering ready-to-use frozen goods, dry goods, and TimSum. These frozen vegetarian products cater to the market needs of those who seek easy, fast, and convenient ways to satisfy their appetite. Homey’s frozen products are designed to provide a nice and awesome taste, catering to the needs of vegetarian food lovers seeking a convenient and delicious option. Explore the world of delicious vegetarian food snow.
Is honey vegan debate?
Honey is often mistaken as vegan-friendly, but it is actually made by bees for bees, and their health can be compromised when harvested by humans. Honey is essential for bees as it provides energy, nutrients, and energy during poor weather and winter months. The honey bee, a genus used in commercial honey production, collects nectar from up to 1500 flowers to fill its ‘honey stomach’, a separate stomach where enzymes break down the nectar into honey.
This honey is then regurgitated and chewed by house bees to complete the honey-making process. The hive works collectively to provide each member with an adequate supply, with each bee producing only a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. There are thousands of species of bees that pollinate various plants, but only seven recognized species pollinate specific crops.
Am I not vegan if I eat honey?
Vegans aim to minimize animal exploitation, including bee exploitation, and often exclude honey from their diets. Honey, made by living bees, is not vegan, and vegans avoid it to protect bee health. Instead, they opt for plant-based alternatives like agave, maple syrup, and date syrup. Vegans also avoid eating animal products like meat, eggs, and dairy, as well as their derived foods. This approach supports the principles of veganism and animal welfare.
Why do vegans not eat honey peta?
Honeybees, like other factory-farmed animals, are subjected to unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation. The beehive, a white box created since the mid-1850s, has been moved from their original shapes to flat-topped tenements. Beekeepers prevent honey production decline by swarming, which involves the division of the hive upon the birth of a new queen. They clip queen wings, artificially inseminate queens using drones, which kills them, and “trick” queens into laying more eggs by adding larger wax cells to the hive. This exploitation of nature is a significant issue in the honey industry.
Is there a vegan version of honey?
Coconut nectar, a plant-based sweetener derived from the flowers of the coconut tree, is a popular honey replacement due to its similar consistency and ability to be used at a 1:1 ratio. Its naturally sweet and mild flavor renders it a versatile ingredient, suitable for incorporation into a variety of culinary applications, including smoothies, salad dressings, desserts, morning coffee, pancakes, and toast.
Why is honey not vegan in Peta?
Honeybees, like other factory-farmed animals, are subjected to unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation. The beehive, a white box created since the mid-1850s, has been moved from their original shapes to flat-topped tenements. Beekeepers prevent honey production decline by swarming, which involves the division of the hive upon the birth of a new queen. They clip queen wings, artificially inseminate queens using drones, which kills them, and “trick” queens into laying more eggs by adding larger wax cells to the hive. This exploitation of nature is a significant issue in the honey industry.
📹 The Biggest Lie About Veganism
Written by: Mitchell Moffit Edited by: Luka Šarlija SOURCES AND FURTHER READING …
I had no idea about this.. I grew up having home made honey and saw how my granddad would care for his bees (he only had one box, not to sell, just for personal use) and I thought that was how everyone would care for the bees because he cared a lot about their well being.. thank you for this explanation, now I can see how bad honey can be and understand things that never crossed my mind! I mean, bee insemination?! People are insane!
Also, on the bee intelligence thing – having taken linguistics, while some bees can communicate pollen sources in a dance akin to language, they have no word of “up” and never devised one. In an experiment, a nectar source was placed high up on a pole – workers relayed the location of the pole to the hive but when more workers were sent there, they just swarmed around the pole.
I am a new “bee” in veganism haha 🙂 and there is a lot to learn . I am binge perusal your articles. Just today I was wondering if honey is vegan,and here is the answer! Thank you so much,you inspired me to go vegan and help the planet,our animal friends and also my own health . I am really thankfull ♡
I’ve been vegan for a month or so now and haven’t eaten honey in ages anyway but this really cleared up in my head why we don’t eat honey. I wish people would just be more open to learning about how their choices affect the world around them rather than just dismissing it and having negative connotations with the word vegan. So glad I made the change and I don’t think I’ll ever go back
This gives such a bad name to bee keepers. This is definitely accurate for industrial honey, but local honey is not at all made like this. Bees make more honey than they could possibly eat, and REAL beekeepers take little, leaving enough honey and plus some for the bees. They don’t poison their bees or mutilate their queens, they take care of the bees. Most beekeepers don’t use gas, as bees aren’t just outright aggressive. They can learn to trust you, and will. Its like having pet chickens and you happen to get eggs because that’s what they produce an excess of.
One way in order to avoid honey bees outcompeting native bees is to plant wildflowers which are native to your area. The leading cause to bee declines in the UK is because since world war 2 we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows. This increases competition between species as they are all fighting over a few individual plant species. If you increase the amount of plant species in your garden, you can help the native bees
This is highly exaggerated. While I am sure some bee keepers do this, the ones I know locally do not kill the drones, they let the queens and drones breed naturally. They also rarely cull a hive. They may kill a queen if her bees are too aggressive to be safe but it’s very rare to completely cull an entire hive. This is done if they are so aggressive that they are an immediate hazard to everyone around them and they can’t afford the few months it would take for a new queen to replace the genetics. Usually if it’s not crazy aggressive, but still too aggressive, they just replace the queen and let the bees replace themselves naturally. When bee keepers do cull its usually just with soapy water so that the hive isn’t a danger to another group of bees. A good bee keeper also will only take as much honey as necessary and make sure the hive always has enough to not starve. Like with most products knowing where you are getting it from makes a world of difference. Since honey is more of a luxury item for me, I will spend more to buy from an ethical bee keeper.
I’ve considered myself plant-based for almost 4 years now but in that time continued to consume honey (hence why I don’t call myself vegan). The reason for this was, as was stated in the article, I was under the assumption that we needed to support the industry that bred bees because populations were in decline and that could have a detrimental impact on ecosystems. 4 years of ignorance has been corrected after perusal a 6 minute article, and I will no longer consume or support the honey industry. Thank you for the effort you put into making this.
This is wildly generalised ed. A friend of mine has a couple of hives. Of which he takes the upmost care. No bees a culled, no bees are harmed during honey harvest. His hives are caught not bought, It really does depend who you get your honey from. It’s one of the few animal products that I believe if you get it from the right person you aren’t harming the bees.
thanks for this article. im a vegan and for a while i didnt eat honey at fist, but then thoughtt that honey wasnt unethical or unsustainable. after doing more research and also seeing this article, i wont be buying honey in the future. i do still have a jumbo jar of it, but im not going to throw it out or be hard on myself, ill use it. the goal is to keep growing as a person and we’re imperfect, its okay to keep learning.
Since this article is about commercial beekeeping, the obvious question is: what about honey from my friend who’s a bee keeper? He doesn’t really do it for money, he does it as a hobby. He takes care of the bees to the best of his knowledge and ability. Is hobbyist beekeeping unethical if it doesn’t participate in any of the practices mentioned in the article? I tend to refuse jars of honey from my friend, but I struggle with finding ethical reasons.
I’ve always had a hard time explaining to other people why I don’t eat honey and I’ve even eaten honey that’s been given to me as a gift. This article has given me the information I need to 1) not eat honey again and 2) inform my friends and family about why eating honey isn’t a positive action. I had no idea that the bee keeping industry was so bad.
Lol, this article contains so much BS. Here’s one: Does it make financial sense to kill off a beehive instead of feeding them for winter? No it fucking does not. Here’s the math: -Full size colony (easily 100-150 euros). -Feeding bees 20 kg of sugar 0.80 * 20 = 16 euros. Even if you triple that, it would be cheaper to feed them. On top of that, if you want to be able to harvest spring honey you need a strong colony coming out of winter. It also costs sugar to start up a new colony, so there’s nothing saved. In other words, check your facts.
I’m just becoming a vegan and didn’t know about the bee cruelty. I have a bee and butterfly garden and we have lots of bees in the summer in the garden. We planted plants and flowers that we researched they would like. We get lots of butterflies too. We rescue some bees who are sleepy or drunk by placing them in the undergrowth so they’re safe until they wake up. It’s disgusting how non humans are treated. Since I changed to vegan my asthma has all but gone and I’ve lost weight. My rashes have gone I don’t cry or feel sad as much and I feel more awake.
Thank you so much for spreding the message I hope there was some kind of media similar to yours, but in Spanish so I can show my mother (an anti-vegan “ecologist”) this information in a didactic way (she refuses to read any of the studies I show/send to her + plenty of them are also in English). Wishing you all the luck
Thank you for this article, as a backyard beekeeper I think there is a big difference between the commercial practices and the “amateurs” as in any agricultural industry. Bees are absolutely amazing animals and fascinating. Their complex social structure and communication is mind blowing. I do not clip queen wings and my bees can swarm away whenever they feel like (and they will fly away if not content!). It is my goal to keep them happy and healthy so they do not leave and will focus on collecting honey to the point that they make more than they need (as they do since they are always working). Farmers in The Netherlands plant narrow strips of wildflowers between mono-crops, I think this helps all pollinators and supports healthy ecosystems, a rising tide lifts all ships. Thanks for being vegan!
I used to keep a couple of hives as a hobby. While most things in the article are true to some extent they paint a very skewed picture. Some large producers who have bees in areas that get freezing over winter may cull the hives, however small hobbyists do not and it is not done in more temperate environments (like Australia where I am from). The second thing is about pollination, with large scale farming large numbers of pollinators are needed for a short period of time, given that it is a monoculture it is not possible for natural pollinators to do the work (as it is only a short term glut of food then the numbers needed would starve) so bees need be trucked in. Thus even if we did not eat the honey bees would still be needed for plant food production (esp things like fruits and almonds). Now you can argue that the farming practices are the problem and we should be growing multiple crops together but this method is a lot less efficient and more costly, so it is unlikely that it will be implemented. My opinion is that veganism is about minimising suffering and I do not see how avoiding honey has any real impact on animal suffering, my opinion is that supporting small local honey producers has a more meaningful impact on reducing suffering.
Honey bees are used for pollination so if you eat advocado, and many other fruit and vegetables, you are eating the product of farmed bees. I’m a vegan btw, so can I not eat Advocados now? I also used to own a honey business and the practices shown are just not done, at least not in NZ. For example: we dont want to feed the bees sugar in winter….its expensive to buy and even more expensive to get to the hives, which are often remote. Leaving honey on the hives is better for the bees and dramatically cheaper. We simply could not afford to kill the hives over winter. The pictures of hives being burned are almost certainly hives with proven varroa mite which legally have to be burned, destroying the hives and a lot of other expensive equipment. I’ve seen beekeepers cry doing this. This article has basically made me question a lot of the things Earthlings Ed has said about industries I dont know about.
There are noninvasive approaches for keeping bees as well. I don’t feel bad about honey from Old Michael’s backyard hive, he loves that box almost as much as his homemade wine. To me the issue doesn’t seem to be the honey or collection in and of itself, but rather the industry surrounding it. I feel the same for many animal products. Almost all living things eat other living things. Most plants have structures that mirror nervous systems, and react to being harmed – Logically they should also have a right to exist. I don’t think there is any escaping that. Ultimately we’re also part of the natural environment, modern society is just not doing that great at adapting symbiotically with other species, save a select few.
Comparing honeybees to “wild bees” seems a bit off, there a plenty of wild honeybees around, consider referring to them as bumble and solitary bee species. Aside from that, it is certainly possible to keep bees naturally, chemical/treatment free and without any feeding (sugar) yet still attain a sizeable honey crop while still leaving enough food stores for the bees themselves. Natural beekeeping is perfectly sustainable and has been practiced around the world for thousands of years, the problem comes from large-scale commercial farming and lack of proper education on the subject. I am just a beginner beekeeper so take what i say with a grain of salt.
I am a vegan for almost 6 years now. Back in my past took a class in beekeeping and kept bees for a season. I don’t know about commercial bee production practices either here or in Europe. Just want to comment about a few things that Ed said and that are not happening in the smaller, local honey production hobbies and businesses in the USA. at 0:26 – he speaks about instrumental insemination; in nature, virgin queens go on mating flights. Her mating flights, across a few days, will result in collecting sperm from 10-25 drones. When a drone (male) bee inseminates a new queen (female) he soon dies because his endophallus breaks along with associated abdominal tissues that are ripped from the drone’s body after sex. A portion of the endophallus remains inside the Queen. The male falls to the ground and soon dies from his few moments of sexual bliss. So while it seems harsh that bee breeders are crushing drones to inseminate new queens, the reality of nature, sadly, is about the same for drones. at 0:50 – swarming is said to be bad for business, which is true. It also can be bad for neighbors when new colony swarms take off and land to make a colony in someone’s attic or walls. It is much better to stop the swarming at the hive of origin and it is the beekeeper’s responsibility to prevent swarms from happening through correct practices that include destruction of the queen cells – this must be done at least 2 times per week to prevent swarming in the spring. (I was a bad beekeeper – my hive swarmed and my neighbors complained – putting a halt to my hobby.
Alot of what you mention in the first half of the article about bee keeping methods is likley from extreme methods of farming used to put products on shelves in supermarkets not for small, local farmers. I’ve never seen a local farmer use any of these methods like wing clipping,artifical insemination, killing for the winter, bin-bag deaths or the like. Killing the queen is usually done to save the whole hive E.g. if she is defective at laying eggs (e.g. only lays drone bees) as putting a new queen, or letting the hive raise a new queen is better for them than keeping the old queen. Killing a hive for its temperment is usually if the bees are incredibly aggressive and pose a threat to wildlife, pets or other people that may get close. It’s usually a last resort. A keeper may attempt to swap out the hive’s queen with a more docile one, which over time can turn the hive more docile too. Ethical bee keeping would be checking the hives regularlly for swarm cells to minimise risks of swarming, instead of clipping wings. Understanding when the hive’s might need help or when harvesting honey shouldnt be done. (drought can lead to less flower growth, so less honey to make). A good bee keeper can recognise when to let bees keep any honey they make as a food source for the winter, usually only excess is harvested or midway through the year so bees can still make more honey ready for winter. Some people even bring their bee boxes inside. I support the growth of veganism but spreading misinformation/ not being specific enough about industry vs local, i feel just puts a bad light on it.
Hi Ed, I really like your website, you’ve exposed me to a lot of new ideas!:) As a vegan, and also once a beekeeper/enthusiast (I am still a bee enthusiast) I find the vegan honey stance misleading and unhelpful. There really isn’t much to suggest that bees are capable of suffering. They are incredibly complex and fascinating animals, but that doesn’t make them capable of suffering. Also I want to make a distinction between pollination and honey production which by most people are probably considered the same thing, but they are differently aspects of the industry. Often times hives used for pollination are managed in a way which will not produce surplus honey, rather just enough for them to make it through the winter. The pollination industry is measurably important for growing the plants that we need to eat. On the other hand, honey producing hives are maintained for the purpose of making lots of honey. Lots of people like the taste of honey (ironically I’m not crazy about it). In the case of pollination, there’s a strong argument to be made that it’s a necessity, so even if there is a level of suffering, it’s possible to justify. For honey production, we already know that taste is not sufficient reason to justify suffering. From my first hand knowledge of bees, it did not ever seem that they are capable of suffering. Here is also a study which was not able to demonstrate that bees do feel pain, although I’m sure there could be some which claim to demonstrate that. Anyway after that whole rant, this is often times a hot button issue that devout vegans are passionate about, and for the lack of evidence I think it’s a shame and overall a net negative when we make strong statements about honey or honeybees.
One thing I never understood was why vegans fail to eat honey. I must admit, I always thought if anything, it was more helpful to eat honey, as to support the bees, but after perusal this article I totally get it and understand. These past few months I’ve been seriously trialing a plant based lifestyle and the more articles I watch – like this one – and books I read, the more pumped and excited I am to be vegan. Amazing article, as usual!
Project Honey Bees have been advertised a lot lately to adopt a bee because they keep dying in winter, it looks like they are helping bee farmers instead though so I left a link to this article for people who care about the bees and it got removed. This is a speculation but I think they have misled buyers into thinking they are protecting bees 🐝 if my comments keep being removed I don’t know how to help
Bees are the only known species besides humans, that can communicate in a mathematical language to other members of their community. They do it by moving in circles and wagging their tails to indicate precise coordinates (yes, it seems they can count precisely!!!) of food or new potential houses they found. Amazing little creatures. Here is a link to a beautiful documentary that shows the life of one of them: cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/a-bees-diary
You can take a honey from local small producers. Not all honey comes from commercial industry. In my town we have three beekeepers and they do not do to bees what is described in the article. Simple said, If I eat honey I do not need to be automatically supporter of these practices. The beekepers I know do not do anything from what is described in the article. This article is biased and what I am missing here is a common sense. You could make a article how bees will thrive without the work of beekeepers when we leave them alone. Thanks.
i’m showing ur articles to both my parents because they don’t understand veganism and have always had a bad view on it (even when i first became vegetarian 5 years ago) because they NEVER researched anything about it at all. i hope they will get a better understanding soon and support me or even become vegan themselves 🙂
You know a person really doesn’t know a topic when he or she presents a Syrphidae as “a bee”. There is a lot of options when it comes to honey. Get to know a local bee keeper and get honey from hives where wings aren’t clipped, where the queen mates freely, where the hives get to keep their own honey as “winter food” etc.
Really well explained and mentioning a lot of facts but I have some questions. You say that honey bees harm the other type of bees, but at the same time say that certain types of bees pollinate certain types of plants/flowers. doesn’t that mean they don’t harm each other? Also, as someone who works with beekeeping as a hobby, I can say from experience that not all honey farmers use these methods and there are more ethical ways to farm honey, such as – only extracting honey in July and leaving the rest of the months for the bees to gather honey for the winter, – moving the bees to indoor storage during winter to ensure the survival of the bees during harsher winters – not clipping wings and instead of checking up on hives and in case they have a queen cell, placing that in another hive avoids swarming and grows into another colony. Bees do feel pain individually, but at the same time bees don’t act like other types of mammals, they are all connected as a hive mind, doing what they deem would be most beneficial to the colony. Yes, sometimes some bees get squeezed and die during extraction and maybe 10 bees die when you do it, but a colony has more 20-80k bees meaning the overall bee population doesn’t get hurt from that loss. Also, in the article, you say that bees harm plants by not pollinating and instead just bringing pollen back to the hive instead of bringing it to other plants, but to my knowledge, having bees increase crop yield, so saying it doesn’t seem weird, I know companies here in Sweden ask bee-keepers to place their colonies near their farms to increase yield, and if a vegan lifestyle takes over globally I also feel that bees will help reduce the amount of farmland and help drive down the cost of agriculture which will benefit everyone.
The footage of killing bees is taken out of context and without credit or permission. I’ve seen the article using soapy water and the guy was heartbroken he had to do so. It is not common place to do so at all. The hive was extremely aggressive and you couldn’t get within a 100 meters or they would swarm you. That’s not how bees are supposed to be and because of safety ( as an example there was a playground close by) he did so. Switching queens was considered but the drones could still continue the aggressiveness to a different hive and he decided it was too dangerous. Soap kills insects quickly and is better than using poison near other hives. If people think that he should’ve kept them: when an aggressive hive of bees or wasps builds a nest near your house or in a public area an exterminator is called, if an animal attacks people it can be decided its in the best interest of all to euthanize it if there is no safe alternative. The same happened here, if they were left in a secludes area and someone came across them they could kill them. /watch?v=O4ldpyIE5t4
“The wrong temperment” It’s rather misleading. I saw the article where this came from, and yes, that hive had to be put down. It was so aggressive, it was trying to sting people meters aways. It was like a rabid dog. It was the ethical thing to do. youtu.be/clMNw_VO1xo?t=87 The source article: youtube.com/watch?v=O4ldpyIE5t4
This is article is in my opinion a dishonest representation of what is going on in the beekeeping world. Though some of the facts are true the attempt to paint honey bees and beekeepers as bad is ridiculous. Many of the article clips in this article were cut and placed in this article with no context or without giving credit or asking permission of the content creator. How do I know? Because one of the short clips in this article is from one of my articles. Fortunately a viewer alerted me to this. If you want to live a vegan lifestyle that is entirely up to you but don’t paint my fellow beekeepers and me as bad people. Without the honey bee many of the fruits and vegetables that you like to eat would not be available. Just one example…the almond. I am not happy about the fact that this website took a clip from one of my articles to do a hit piece on the topic of my website. I am sure that many others would feel the same if they were made aware of this article. The fact that the creators of this article are skilled in their craft does not make them honest or trustworthy. You can’t believe everything you watch or hear on YouTube.
So SO much of this article was taken out of context. A few of the clips here were from a man killing a beehive. This was a beehive that he kept ethically but a queen came in that introduced Africanised bee genetics. The bees became so aggressive and dangerous that he feared for the neighbours and animals around him so the only reasonable thing to do was to kill the hive for the safety of himself and his family. I’m all for being vegan if you want to be. But these broad sweeping statements about how beekeeping is performed is just a load of shite. Do research on real keepers and the efforts they go to, to keep their bees alive and healthy. Most of these ‘facts’ are inaccurate and without sources. Not to mention this guy has taken a load of other youtubers content and articles out of context, most likely without permission, to suit his own agenda.
I live in Utah & am fortunate to have met 3 beekeepers within the last two years & none of them cull their colonies because it’s pretty easy to maintain them over winter. Some beekeepers do choose to use sugar syrups through the entire winter but many leave enough honey for the hive to last through winter & if the winter endures they will then supplement with a sugar syrup. None of the studies available done on the effect of sugar syrup have indicated conclusively a positive or negative affect on bees themselves. The jury is still out on whether it causes harm or if it helps, or if it’s a neutral affect. Another thing, bees aren’t native to North America – wild colonies tend to die out in half the time of kept populations for this reason alone they typically fair far worse in winter. Nowhere in this article did you mention the conflict of the “no harm” ethos when it comes to honey substitutes which would allow for a more fully rounded discussion on the ethics & alternatives of honey so people can decide for themselves. Such as how agave harvesting is directly linked to destroying bats natural habitats thus decimating the populations just for what, the demand for commercial sweeteners? Or the high climate impact of rice syrup? Or the amount of food that solely exist due to our reliance on commercial beekeeping? Are you not going to eat cucumbers, blueberries, peaches, watermelon, zucchinis etc & so on because they are pollinated by commercial bee populations? Or almonds in California that require over half the bee population in the US to be shipped there in order for their production?
To all the people who are saying, “but locally produced honey is more ethical than commercial bee farming,” I think you’re not understanding the true philosophical reason why vegans don’t eat honey: Even if you could hypothetically take the bees’ honey without harming them, you would still be perpetuating carnism, which is the oppressive ideology that animals are here for us to use as resources. Being vegan is about looking at the world through a less entitled lens and realizing that humans do not have the right to another sentient being’s life, body, or anything they produce for their own species. (And yes, bees do have at least a baseline level of sentience because they have brains, nervous systems, and all the sensory organs required for touch, taste, smell, vision, and detecting sound. They can be trained to perform certain tasks in exchange for a reward (look it up), which indicates they feel pleasure, and they actively avoid harmful stimuli (such as smoke), indicating they have some ability to suffer.)
Great article, very clear and compelling. Where can I see citations? I want to send this to my mother in law, but I was looking for some sort of citations so that I could also see the literature, or sources to this article so as to better prepare arguments I’ve had, and you’ve provided against honey consumption.
It is a shame that this chanel is so biased and he never talks about small-scale ethical farms (I get that these kinds of farms are maybe not present in UK or US, however in my country there are few of them) it is not like there is no possible way of having ethical animal products (excluding meat) it’s just very hard to get and quite expensive
I’d love a article about organic beekeeping/honey! I still have quite a few questions. I remember looking into it and not being able to come to a conclusion as to whether the benefits outweighed the negatives. ie. The amount of pesticide free land needs to be something like 3 km from the site of the hive, and the practices are much more humane than commercial beekeeping. I wonder if a huge demand for organic honey would accelerate the process of pesticide elimination and rewilding land etc. I also understand that we can’t completely end our use of bees unless we give up all foods requiring pollination and end large scale farming, as natural pollination levels will never meet the needs of those large farms. Would the motivation of organic honey profits lead to better conditions for the bees required for our food supply?
These cruel practices are very rarely employed by small scale beekeepers, whose whole purpose is to do everything they can to keep the bees alive. Modern hives are built so that a single frame can be removed and then replaced without hurting a single bee. Additionally, bees are very fragile, and wild bee colonies can often die randomly and of the smallest environmental shifts, ridding an entire area of crucial pollinators. Ethical beekeeping (local farms and small-scale beekeepers) offsets this by keeping the bees much safer than they would be in the wild. Furthermore, healthy bees actually overproduce honey, and if that excess honey is not removed it ruins the hive and the bees. Ethical beekeepers always inspect a hive before taking honey (and many times when they’re not taking honey) to make sure there are no parasites and all the bees are healthy, and remove that excess honey when it becomes an issue. Any parasites are gently treated, if the bees aren’t producing enough honey to feed themselves they are fed, and the hive is prepared for temperature shifts, all of which means bees kept in this way are much healthier and longer lived, meaning, of course, that they can contribute as pollinators to all the plants in the area to help them be healthy as well. Beekeeping is incredibly expensive and time-consuming, but without bees the environment suffers because it needs pollinators. To be ethical toward the environment it is important not to stop buying honey altogether (and cut off ethical beekeepers from a source of income they need to help keep bees alive) but rather to make sure that you are buying your honey from local farms and ethical beekeepers.
I’ve been a beekeeper for many years and have worked on some very large apiaries. The unethical practices shown in this article are extreme and I have never known a beekeeper to deliberately kill hives. I have great respect for vegans, but they need to know that without beekeepers, most fruits and vegetables would not exist. There simply aren’t enough pollinators in the wild due to pesticides, glyphosate, and the vastness of factory farms. No one is more concerned with the well being of bees than a beekeeper.
What a misleading article, very disappointing I have admired your others. As a small scale beekeeper neither I nor any others I have ever met carry out the practices you describe. 1. Honey bees are left more than enough honey to see them through to spring, only the surplus is harvested. 2. I never clip queens, they are free to swarm if they choose to do so. 3. They colony decides for itself when it wants to replace its queen and she mates naturally with local drones. 4. No one kills off colonies for the winter that would be crazy and would cost far more to replace, even commercial keepers wouldn’t do that as they would be throwing away hundreds of pounds. Beekeepers do there upmost to ensure all the girls survive winter. If a colony had not collected enough stores to see them through winter then not only would no honey be collected but they would be fed to ensure they could survive. How many of these practices you describe are in the UK ? Practices in the USA are very different and the honey bee is not native to the USA whereas it is a native UK species. Remember all drones die when they mate, their only role is to pass on their genetic material, which always leads to their death.
Okay, I’m sorry but it’s these types of articles that give vegans a bad rap. This completely ignores the other arguments for legitimately good beekeepers and why it’s important to purchase from them to reduce the need for industrialized beekeeping. Responsible farming exists where both bees and beekeeper benefit from each other. This is completely ignoring those cases and painting a broad stroke of what is happening.
🐝 Bees are found on every continent except for Antarctica, in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants. Bees feed on nectar and pollen, the former primarily as an energy source and the latter primarily for protein and other nutrients. Most pollen is used for food for their larvae. Human beekeeping or apiculture has been practised for millennia, since at least the times of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. Bees have appeared in mythology and folklore, through all phases of art and literature from ancient times to the present day. It is thought that bees originally evolved from hunting wasps which acquired a taste for nectar and decided to become vegetarians. Fossil evidence is sparse but bees probably appeared on the planet about the same time as flowering plants in the Cretaceous period, 146 to 74 million years ago. 🐝🐝 🐝
Ed, while I see that, you have something for us to be concerned about, I have been reading tons of the comments, some of which are bee keepers. the majority of keepers would think it unholy to kill off their hives, and clipping the queen unheard of, I understand where you are coming from with this, it is sad to tarnish the whole industry with the same brush. When this is a rare case, and most of what you have said is not common practice. More research would not be unwelcome x
Honey production on a large scale is cruel, yes. However, you’ll find that many of these practices do not happen with small scale bee keepers. I have a friend who keeps bees, he loves them, he only sells honey if they have made enough. He didn’t sell any this year because it wasn’t a good year for the bees in the UK and he couldn’t be sure they had produced enough to ensure they would be fed through the winter. You don’t necessarily need to stop eating honey, you just need to be smart about where and who you buy it from, and avoid large scale production like the honey found in supermarkets.
As a beekeeper myself, most of these practices are not used by your typical local beekeeper. We do not clip our queens, wings, we do not forcefully inseminate the queen, and we NEVER kill our bees/hives UNLESS the bees are Africanized. When a hive is Africanized, it essentially means the queen has a genetic disposition to be incredibly aggressive, and therefore the offspring she produces are also incredible hostile. This can pose a risk for anyone, especially those who are allergic to bees, as they will be highly likely to attempt to sting you if you are near them. This rarely ever occurs, so your typical local beekeeper wants to ensure the longevity of the hive. We also leave enough honey in the hives to get the bees through winter. So, to vegans who don’t eat honey: I don’t blame you for not wanting to consume mass produced honey, but do not count ALL sources of honey to be as cruel as corporations. Support your local businesses, and but honey from a local beekeeper. Not only would you be able to eat delicious honey again, but you would also be allowing a beekeeper to increase the population of honeybees in your area. Edit: not sure why the creator of this article said they don’t spread pollen effectively, that is entirely untrue. Honeybees are just as good at doing so as any other bee. As to competing with other bees, I also don’t get this one. All bees collect nectar from plants as their main source of food. Honeybees are a type of bee that processes that nectar and turns it into honey, which can be stored.
Love the article! My wife is currently doing a bunch of research on pregnancy while being vegan. There is a lot of negative/false information about a pregnancy while being vegan. Although I believe that the vegan lifestyle is the best option animals, our personal health and the planet, I would love to hear a podcast episode and or YouTube article about being pregnant while vegan. Thanks for all of the awesome work that you do. Keep it up!
I would agree partly but it’s not the plant based diet that will save us: it’s the de-industrialisation of animal products and return to ethical principles now inexistent especially in the USA. Also veganism itself besides not being healthy is a burden for the ecosystem when is under a capitalistic system
This is why I’m building an earth-ship as my home and choosing to live a sustainable life by eating 🌱 vegan, foraging my own food from my garden In the appropriate climate, and becoming a zero waste and a tad bit minimalist this way I can become connected with my environment as clean as possible. Oh and to all my other vegans out there don’t let people tell you your dumb or stupid or what your doing isn’t going to save the planet 🌎 you are the change in this messed up world 🗺✊ and to preople that live in big cities you can change as well by going vegan 🌱 becoming a zero waste person and donating time to eco topics such as helping animals at shelters and planting trees and helping organizations. 👏 with each step comes a choice chose the good one ♻️🌱🌎🐇✊
Why do you worry about an insect that creates a resource that humans can exploit, when there is no concern over the insects that are culled in the creation of the food products that vegans consume. It seems very hypocritical to say the insects killed in the creation of your own food is fine, however if it is something that can be used as an economic resource it is considered bad.
This topic is way more complicated than you’re letting on. Though some vegans like to think so, veganism doesn’t eliminate animal suffering. The fact is, alongside all the vegetables, rice, pasta, couscous, etc. that you eat, many, many insects have been killed. So it is not at all clear that by buying a jar of maple syrup you are harming less insects than a jar of honey. This is especially so if the honey is made locally and the maple syrup comes from far away because of all the insects killed during transport. Vegans can be unreasonably absolutist, so much so I’ve actually started calling myself a strict vegetarian instead — because I don’t see a good reason to avoid honey over similar products — especially if the bee keeper treats the bees kindly. Another area where vegans are laughably unreasonable is non-sentient animals like mussels, clams, scallops, and oysters.
Damn dude, this kind of hits hard/hurt. I had a small hive as a hobby to do my part and bring a few bees to have my own honey, keep my plants/berries pollenated. I kind of feel like I did more harm for the planet than good. Thank’s for sharing and looks like I’ll need to dive in a little bit more. Thank-you for sharing.
Any links to all the studies you referenced? Also, native stingless honey bees and honey products derived from them exist. Also, swapping to alternatives such as cane sugar derived syrups that contain none of the benefits, or worse, agave (which is infamous for deforestation) doesn’t help. Also, living 100% ethically in the current modern society is impossible, and just boycotting an entire industry because its most popular product is less than ideal won’t steer us to a better future – buying the alternatives such as honey from stingless honey bees will.
Bees are one of the very few animals which consent to be farmed – if your bees dont like your hive, they sod off. The keeper has to care for them – plant flowers, monitor for signs of disease, take only excess honey. What you’re objecting to is factory farming – people having one hive at the bottom of the garden is good for your plants; and means we get a sweetner nither shipped halfway round the world nor derived from petrol
Most of the stuff described in this article is misinformation based on flimsy evidence. Bee hives do not do the stuff like it is told in this article, besides we NEED those chives in order to support our farm crops that we eat. if it wasnt for bee chives, the environmental damage caused by polinating our crops artificially would be way too devastating. Also replacing honey with artificial sugar and maple syroup is not good for environment, not good at all its way worse in fact according to UN study on bees. Vegans should draw a line between common sense and being crazy and hypocritical. If you care for bee chives, you should just give up eating majority of fruits and avocados, because growing them also cause insects suffering. Stop vacuuming your house, stop washing yourself and stop cleaning ur house in general, because you cause insects suffering in those ways too… I dont put insects on par with cows or chicken, sorry not sorry.
So…what about figs with insects ? I did a article: youtu.be/NroRPELXu6M Also, beekeepers care for bees and they are used to pollinate so vegans can eat their plant food… and bee populations are increased and stay safe by human care… Honey is harvested and the bees always have more than enough honey. More than enough… -Jeff Goes Random
Please provide contex for the articles shown instead of use only the small parts of the articles that without any contex just support your own claim. I came here to see if i could learn anything new on this topic. If you dont provide contex to article clips you show to support your cause, then that signals that the article clips you DID show actually have another message in the rest of the article. EG; Showing a article clip of a person saying “Im gonna kill her right now” in reference to the bee queen shown in the article might have entierly different contex in the actual article. There might have been an actual reason. This sort of stuff makes it rather difficult as a critically thinking individual to accept these articles. Secondly, you have not stated any outside sources in your article, nor have any in the description. This makes further research into the topic almost impossible for someone just perusal your article, especially with your article as a starting point for said research. Now on to the topic at hand. Nice article! I do agree with a lot of the things you said but you made some misstakes in your article. Number one, hives of bees will “swarm” (when they move) even with the queen having clipped wings. Second, i have not hear of any beekeeper in my area that would ever clip the wings of their queens, because it is as you said a bad practice. Now you did indeed mention at the begining “In the commercial honey industry” which i believe to be correct. They might indeed use a lot of these practices.
Beyond the ethical practices and vegan stigmatization of honey not being Vegan, I’ve been vegan for almost 20 years before it was cool and became vegan due to various allergies to dairy products, peanuts, fish\\shellfish,and most animal products except honey. And have found honey to be beneficial for my blood sugar stability and mental focus without the blood sugar crash unlike other sweeteners (maple sugar, cane sugar, fruit & fructose etc.) that said I came into this out of the box approach to this without discarding honey due to being vegan. Honey and bee pollen have been staples in my health and diet providing nutrients, enzymes, and trace elements and stable healthy sugar source. Honey is also a miracle medicine of sorts and has helped me in times of weakness. Although this is somewhat off track with the article at hand it’s to be understood the many people could benefit from honey yet I do condemn malpractices of an industry that uses unnatural means to obtain great profits and jeopardizes natures integrity bees are our friends they pollinate everything
Presumably a lot of commercial food plants are pollinated by these artificialy managed and bred bees. Almonds in the US being a well known example. Hives are driven around the country on semitrailers to different farms. So I guess everyone, vegans and meat eaters alike should be asking questions on how our crops are pollinated. Honey is just the beginning. We need to have an education push on how our plant based food is farmed/pollinated too..I’m guilty of not always knowing when I buy groceries. I’m also vegan
I avoid all animal products other than honey, and I work with bees on a daily basis. Yes, there are some dubious practices especially with the commercial honey industry but your points are really not representative of the majority of smaller local beekeeping. Besides that, I think you should look into pollination and all the food industries that use bees. Apples, almonds, flax, blueberries, sunflowers, a number of spices, the squash family, canola etc.. Often honey is a byproduct of pollination service, and especially honey that has the ethical problems you described, so if you want to eliminate these issues you need to address pollination, and vegetable/fruit agriculture more broadly.
This footage is all out of perspective. The guy drowning the hive had to take it out because his neighbor’s kids were getting stung repeatedly and they were killing other hives. I’ve seen the footage and he Waited months, requeened them, moved them, did EVERYTHING you can do to change the temperament of a hive before “culling” which isn’t even a term we use. The articles of the bees in the bags were of @thekillerbeeguy moving a swarm so large it was breaking a tree from a populated area to an unpopulated one and they shook all the bees out. I am a honeybee removal specialist and I run a rescue for bees. That’s my job. I literally save bees 24/7 365. Most beekeepers DO NOT kill off their hives to overwinter, they feed them and seal off the hive with insulation leaving a small enough exit for the bees to cleanse without losing crucial heat and moisture. If you want the truth? Vegans are hypocrites. Far more bees are killed during the pollenation of almonds, zucchini, squash, avocados and other stone fruits. They’re forklifted onto pallets of six hives and then lifted with a crane onto semis with hundreds of pallets belonging to multiple different beekeepers and covered with nets while they’re driven across the country and deposited in a strange place with very little nectar and other bees who may have mites or beetles right after a hard winter. Then the almonds are sprayed with fungicide which kills billions of bees. This is repeated every five weeks until all the crops are pollinated.
I am a vegan, but honey is still the one area where I make an exception. I eat very little honey, but when I do I buy domestically produced German organic honey, instead of plant-based alternatives for two reasons: firstly, organic standards for honey in Germany are, to my knowledge, perhaps not perfect but much better than what you’ve shown here. For example, bees are left with enough honey to survive the winter, wing clipping is forbidden, and there is no artificial feeding. Secondly, most plant-based alternatives have to be imported from outside Germany, usually outside the EU. So, the carbon footprint of honey is going to be way lower. I’m not 100% sure about any of this, and if I ever have a reason to eat more honey, I will absolutely do more research into this – perhaps I will find a better alternative; although it will probably come down to just buying honey from a local, non-industrial farmer: No suffering bees, no carbon footprint, and a relatively minor ecological impact if any (depending on their bees).
I disagree with the ethical argument for not eating honey. The essential question is whether it feels like something to be a bee or not. I’m a vegan because it seems clear that it does feel like something to be most of the animals we eat. This article establishes the secondary criterion of what would be unnessecary suffering if the first criterion was met, but it does not meet the first criterion.
I do understand your points and agree with most of them. I myself do not consume honey and only very little animal products, but I do think this article is a bit “unfair”. Can you honestly tell me that there are no benefits from “bee farming” at all for our ecosystem? In most of your articles you ask about ethics of animal killing and eating, can this practice only be unethical in your opinion? I’m just curious about what you all think about that. Not trying to attack anyone or spit on anyone’s opinion btw 🙂 just one curious person here <3
I’m no bee keeper, but when I researched the subject it was made clear to noobies that hives are long-term investment. I highly doubt your claim on culling bees for winter. Also, you make pretty far-fetched claims on bee sentience. But most importantly, a lot of honey in supermarkets is just flavoured corn syrup, so if you were happy with eating it so far you might as well continue, unless corn-syrup isn’t vegan…
Like the usual dilemma with vegans, is this a fault of mass production and it’s malpractices or is it to do with the inherent act of harvesting honey from bees? Just like having pigs, or chickens… if they are kept in healthy lifestyle conditions and have a happy life, that is probably better than living in the wild, what’s the problem?
I’m a newly converted vegan and I’m slightly confused, we still use insect sprays and repellents that kill mosquitoes, cockroaches (Which I’m really freakin scared of and can shoot with a shotgun), and other bugs, we even use mouse traps which might kill rodents, but why must we separately consider bee suffering? Because as of now, I usually draw the line at animal suffering and not insect suffering.
The mix of manipulation and pure bs in this vid is just prepostrous! 😠 1, beekeepers never kill their bees to save money, the market worth of a single bee family is 10x higher than the price of the beefood needed. Beehives are burned (or killed in another way) only if it is necessary to limit the spread of some dangerous diseases. 2, inseminating queen bees is not as common practice as that guy makes it sound, and the drones that are crushed during the process die during natural mating as well, so it’s not like they would’ve survived and enjoyed their life or something. Also, given that the sole purpose of a drone’s life is mating (once!), but only one in a few hundred is lucky enough to achieve it, using them in insemination actually fulfills their purpose, so they’re the lucky ones. 3, clipping the queen’s wings is optional, not many beekeepers do this. It doesn’t help to identify the queen bee in the slightest, and it also does not prevent swarming, it only prevents the swarm from running away very far. And the queen bee doesn’t mind her clipped wings, it doesn’t hurt her, she functions perfectly normal, clipped or not. 4, beekeepers take on average 10-20% of the honey bees collect, the rest is used by the bee family throughout the year. Research show that replacing that amount with sugar syrup or substitutes gives no negative effect on the bee family health and performance. Some research show that bees fed with sugar syrup during winter actually are healthier and stronger than when left with some types of honey.
You can’t really say that bees have emotion without backing up your claims. Insects are dumb as shit animals, so dumb that a grasshoper has been observed being eaten alive by ants, but not fleeing because it was too focused on one task, which means they likely don’t feel pain. I also don’t like the way he tries to add in scary sounding music and has gross close ups, which then strays away from being objective and tries to play on peoples emotions.
Mainly Large Corporation Bee Companies do this. Buy from local small Bee Keepers. My local Bee Keepers are all natural, we have many wild flowers in our area. Its sad to scare Vegans to stop consuming honey, the Vegans I’ve known all look sickly already, honey is so very healthy. In my area all foods are still accessible from small farmers.
I would like to know where this youtuber got all of this information… wikipedia? Please have a chat with a respectable beekeeper and read some papers found on reputable scientific journals alrighty? How are you going to become a beekeeper if you don’t order a queen and 1-2 kg of bees? You think it is wise to go into the woods and catch a hive full of wild, temperamental bees? Secondly, beekeepers only harvest honey from the Supers and NOT from their honey reserve in the main body. In cold climates for example a hive can have 2 main bodies (each with 10 frames) that will help the bees to overcome tough weather. This is basic information found in any sensible book and paper about beekeeping, but I guess you need to attract viewership so you traded reliable information with misinformation in order to sound dramatic and trigger emotions in people.
Didn’t know how crazy and big the mass industry of beekeeping was… I didn’t even think about it. My question always was: what’s so bad about locally keeping bees? I guess I know now that it should be wild bees. But my original question still remains. What’s bad about someone who keeps a beehive that’s potentially wild bees, cares for them over winter, etc?
Just remember these commercial production techniques are not used by many of the smaller local producers you might be able to find in your area – at least where I live in the Midwest it’s not hard to find some options that don’t rely on cruelty in the process. Plus you get some options other than the clover-only honey that is the default across the US.
Ok, now I get why vegans don’t eat honey. I had ZERO idea about all this but am looking into going vegan and have been perusal articles about alternatives. I searched for a article about vegans and honey and having watched this, I am disgusted that this happens. We are told honey is good for you and I have it when I have a sore throat and also in my tea, (instead of sugar), but I will not be having honey ever again after seeing this. I just cannot do it after perusal this.Ok, maybe not all or local bee keepers don’t do these things but the fact that methods like this exist at all is enough to put me off completely. 🤷♀️
I never even realised they did this in the honey industry! clipping the queen bee’s wing and inseminating her made me want to throw up. It’s horrible to see. Bees work so hard just for us to take their honey. I’ve been vegan for 6 years and of course never eaten honey, but I never even knew this was happening. Thank you for educating us! People I know are always asking me Why I don’t eat honey, and it’s really annoying, they just don’t seem to get it. So next time I’m going to show them this!
Back when I was interested in beekeeping and I thought it was all humane, I went to go see some hives at a local beekeeper’s apiary. I had the full suit on, very excited to learn all about the magic of bees, I loved bees and thought they were wonderful and I still do. Except, this experience at the apiary really changed my view of the honey industry. On the way he told me how he had to “cull” an entire hive due to them being too aggressive and protective of their honey. This upset me and I asked how he did it and he said he had to gas them. During the day, I was shown all the different types of beehives he had, the ‘nice’ ones and the ‘angry’ ones. The nice hive was good, we had a look through the different layers check nothing “bad” was happening. To open the hive we used a smoker, I used to think it was to relax them, but no, he told me it was actually to mimic a wildfire happening, and they get so worried they try to eat all the honey stores as quickly as possible, and they get so full they are less likely to act fast and try sting, they’re subdued with the fullness. I found this quite distressing as I saw them scramble to get all their honey and their panic. Now the most horrific part happened whilst opening up the ‘angry’ hive. I saw what appeared to be stuck dead bodies to the honeycomb wax, bees were getting crushed during hive inspection, now hive inspections happen roughly 3 times a week at a small apiary. So this sort of thing happens often and the beekeeper told me, it was “collateral damage” but it didn’t matter cos there’s so many of them and they breed rapidly, he told me.
Some studies on honey bee introduction on wild biomes. It’s actually a touchy subject not completly fugured out. sci-hub.se/doi.org/10.1086/419860 sci-hub.se/doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2004.01376.x sci-hub.se/doi.org/10.1016/j.coviro.2016.06.006 sci-hub.se/10.1038/s41598-018-27591-y It seems that there are impacts for sure, but the extension is not well understood.
Hmmm but what about the other ways of extraction— I mean the farmers in my ancestral village don’t do any such insemination or stuff…..would that still be unethical? ANd also regarding milk, they say that they don’t impregnate the cows. This what someone from there wrote”People keep a cow as well as its calf together as pets. When the calf needs the milk in the morning, it goes to its mother and asks for it. Then the cow naturally releases the milk and the calf consumes milk according to its requirement. After the calf is done, only then the cow is milked. It is good to see that the cow does not resist when the milkman attempts to milk it at that time. However, the process is very difficult if milking is attempted before the calf has had its part. These villagers use no drugs or machine to milk a cow, it happens smoothly and happily. They take care of the cow and its calf and supposedly the cow does not mind sharing some of its extra milk in return. The amount of milk taken is very little and is used within the family only. It is a custom to still keep the cow even during its old age when it does not produce milk anymore. They treat it like a member of the family and even the cow responds to the affection and respect it gets. However, this culture is fading now. People have started living in nuclear families and small apartments where keeping a cow at home is no more feasible. We have started to rely on dairy farms where hundreds cows and buffalos are bred and milk is distributed on a daily basis.
I couldn’t watch this through, just couldn’t. I’m not vegan or veggie as a lot of vegan and vegetarian foods irritate my bowels, IBS, stage 4 endometriosis, fibroids, reflux, and other illnesses. If there were substitutes I could eat safely I’d go 1000% vegan. But soya, tempeh, quorn, fruit and veg to some extent, grains, especially wholegrain, beans, pulses etc, and I spent years eating them, really affect my health. But this well I can easily swap to Agave syrup, although it doesn’t have the same bowel and stomach protecting qualities of honey. Some food science bod, please make vegan and veggie food safe and healthy for people like me to eat.
This sounds like a bunch of bs In my professional view. I have been working with honeybees for a while now. This might be true with large production but for just someone producing local honey with a few hives would not have the same impact. In fact my bees have enough boxes that they will survive throughout winter without any issues. Furthermore I only take 10 frames out of honey and not all at once so the bees still have plenty left. People who don’t understand what really happens shouldn’t talk about this at all. The artificial insemination on occurs in large production of honey not small. Killing of the queen is not something most people want to do. Clipping of the wings doesn’t harm the queen because it is like hair, not only this but if a beekeeper loses the queen it costs way more money to by a new one so the best bet is to make sure you keep her. A normal bee hive has about 60,000 bee’s in the wild and that is about what is in the boxes. Learn the real facts not from one side set up in a very sad manner like was done here, he didn’t say anything positive about keeping bees at all.
I’m mostly vegan as of right now (transitioning my family). I don’t eat honey regularly, but even after perusal this, I’m still not convinced I shouldn’t continue. We kill many insects and rodents in producing crops, and accept these deaths as collateral damage due to the fact we have to eat /something/. Just by walking through the woods, I step on bugs by accident. I might sit down on a fallen tree and crush a butterfly, purely by the fact that I’m a big lumbering animal without eyes on the back of my head and butterflys are stupid and put themselves in harms way at the last minute. I can’t go through my life worrying about insect-life at each step of my existence because it simply wouldn’t be practical. So, when I’m faced with the plight of honey-bees I’m finding it very difficult to find any reserves of empathy for them that wouldn’t make me a hypocrite in every other area of my life. I suppose the best argument is – would I be upset in a world without honey? Probably not, there are plenty of alternatives. Therefore, since it is unnecessary, I shouldn’t eat honey. But if all we are doing is what is /necessary/ then there are so many arguments against so many things we do – its not necessary that I own a Gibson SG, have it transported across the world from the USA, replacing the pickups which were shipped all the way from China, replacing the strings which were made from minerals mined from the ground, killing insect-life, mammal-life and contributing towards the destruction of the enviornment.
Guys lets not fall in this vegan religion..I have a plant based diet…but I do consume bee products. My country has the best honey in Europe…and its because of its healthy bee population.The problem is with farmers that use pesticides which can harm bees…Pesticides on crops,orchards,veggies…I wonder how many of you eat healthy vegan food..not just for the sake of animals,but for the sake of your health…
This is not meant as a critique nor does it invalidate any of your points, nor am I attempting to, I just think that life is richer knowing this specific thing: The animals shown licking the flower at 3:43 are not bees, they’re flies!!! There are a bunch of insects that evolved to mimic bees (and wasps) b/c it affords them protection from predators. There are moths that look like wasps. Doesn’t that just blow your mind? It blows mine!
Beekeeper here, there are a lot of false information in your article. Just to name a few: 1. Wings are not clipped to prevent swarming, they are clipped to prevent a moving swarm from flying out of the reach of the beekeeper. FYI wings have no nerve ends. Therefore, it not painful for the queen. Plus, not every beekeeper clips the wings of their queens. 2. There are a lot of method to keep bees. Artificial insemiation is not a common practice among small time beekeepers. 3. Hives are not culled if they are weak. Especially not with gasoline. That’s just a ridiculous statement. If there are really beekeepers who do something like that they shouldn’t be allowed to keep bees! 4. Queens have to be replaced every now and then to protect the colony. A weak queen can not produce enough healthy offspring which endangers the swarm’s selfdefense capabilities. 5. I’m gonna stop here there are just to many false information in your article… In my opinion, it is honorable and compassionate of you to be concerned about the well-being of bees. And it is a good thing not to buy cheap honey from giant farms. Buy local, buy from a beekeeper you know, they should be more than willing to let you know what methods they use.
I don’t know. Still not really convinced. I have been vegan for almost 5 years now. I don’t purposely buy honey. But if it was e.g. the last ingredient of some cereal I really don’t care. MoreoverI don’t believe there is a difference between “wild bees” and “honey bees”. Saying one is “native” and therefore worthier is speciest in my opinion. They are the exact same species. Surely, industrial honey farming is bad – but I don’t see any comparison to the meat/fish/dairy/egg industry. My neighbours have their own beehive where they only take the honey which they don’t consume and I really don’t see the problem there. I still wouldn’t eat it because of my general belief not wanting to exploit animals. In this case I don’t see why it would be particularly morally wrong though, if one doesn’t have the overshadowing belief of not wanting to consume anything that comes from an animal.
Prior to mass industrialization of farming, period, we didn’t have these problems, despite centuries of beekeeping and livestock breeding and general farming because we lived in harmony with nature, symbiotically. The problem most vegans have isn’t with the idea of consuming certain foods, but with the ethics or lack of ethics in producing on an industrial scale. For example, tomatoes when injured actually emit a sonic frequency that scientists believe to be effectively a scream. So, those fruits and vegetables you live off, parasitically, I might add is no different. Those food types have similar, if not worse industrial practices that destroy the land. Some of the food cannot even be growth without proper fertilizer like bone meal, an animal product. Fruits and vegetables don’t give you permission or consent to being consumed anymore than anything else does. If you take veganism to its logical conclusion nothing will be permissible for consumption except for soylent green. Welcome to the future. You’re living on a human farm!
This is all true and an under talked about angle of how our modern farming systems are deeply messed up and unsustainable. The one thing I would add, that no one talks about, is how huge mono crops (like almonds being the most famous example but there are many others) are just as much a byproduct of unnatural honeybee labour as honey itself because the mono crops are so vast, natural pollinators could never live there so honeybees are trucked around (another stresser on them) to live there just for the short period of flowering and then packed up and moved on. In this modern messed up farming practice, we wouldn’t have all these foods without the honeybees to pollinate them. The best thing you can do is 1, yes, be vegan, but then 2, buy from small local farms as much as you can or also have a garden yourself because these small farms don’t need to truck bees around to pollinate as there are always different plants flowering and it’s the only good way for the planet as well as animals.
Please make a distinction between large multinational honeyfarms and local beekeepers. As in all industries, you cannot compare the two. I started myself as a beekeeper in 2017. I have never lost or killed a hive. Instead of having my bees compete with local insects, I provide more food by planting trees, and flower meadows. I don’t clip my queens, I don’t order Q’s from artificial inseminators, I don’t restrict the genepool and only take a limited amount of honey so the bees can survive winter. Please also be carefull with the visuals you use. The scene of the beekeeper ‘soaping’ bees, was a necessary action because that hive was super aggressive and a danger to people. The beekeeper himself was very troubled that he had to do that. Full vid here: youtube.com/watch?v=O4ldpyIE5t4