What Is The Deal With Honey?!

I could go into the process,

but the bottom line is that veganism means abstaining from the use of animal products,
usually because of an objection to the notion of animals as property.

Bees are animals.

Hawkeye, a species does not have ethical interests, being a mere taxonomical classification.

It is individuals who have ethical interests.

The deal is that even vegans need bee-keeping to sustain their crops. Even their organic ones. One third of all food consumed in the US requires bee pollination. Most crops must hire bee-keeping services to pollinate their vast crops because local bee populations are not enough. Honey is one of the products of bee-keeping that keeps bee-keepers in business. So as you can see even vegans exploit bees.

Its funny that they seem so dedicated to this one bug (bee) But the Trillions of other bugs that get killed by using pesticides every year for the produce vegans eat is almost never mentioned by them.

Their is nothing wrong with honey. Its one thing if you don't want to eat milk or meat but honey has very little problems. Unlike other farm animals, bees are free to go wherever they want to. When the beekeeper takes the honey they give extra sugar water anyway. If you leave the bees with too much honey you risk the hive being robbed from other insects. Vegans rely on the farmers for their crops, the farmers rely on the beekeepers for pollination, and the beekeepers rely on the honey market.

and yes a couple bees may be smashed when a beekeeper inspects the hive. Their are usually 30,000 bees in a hive and about 50 are crushed a year by the beekeeper. Im sure you kill a lot more insects in your cars then you would by eating the honey.
GatorGirl- I dont know of anyone who burns their hives down before the winter. Most of the beekeepers are located down south were the bees do fine through the winter.

And to answer your other question, raw honey is just honey that is straight from the hive and not filtered. Some people think its healthier and some don't.

Basically it's this: Bees produce honey for themselves to eat. So when someone buys honey, they are stealing food from the bees - it's like buying milk is stealing food from the calves.

ETA: Some vegans do use honey though. We coined them "beegans". =P It's up to the person, but I personally avoid honey and beeswax all I can.

Also, it's like this - since when do bees need beekeepers to survive? Bees don't need beekeepers - not for food, not for shelter, and not for protection. It's the beekeepers that need their honey to sell. It's exploitation, plain and simple.

Smoke pacifies bee's and to collect their honey beekeepers need to smoke the nests so they can collect the honey without upsetting the bee's (smoking the nests does not kill the bee's and the beekeeper gives the bee's sugar to eat so they don't suffer the honey's loss). Some vegans believe that bee's might be harmed or killed in this process and so don't eat honey.

Personally i think its a rather silly philosophy considering all the millions of bugs, insects, worms & mollusc's that are killed or damaged in the plowing, sowing, growing (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, chemical fertilisers etc) & harvesting of crops.
The bee keeping industry is also essential to the growing of crops- commercial bee's in the USA are worth an estimated 2 billion dollars in terms of crop pollination a year in comparison to the 3 billion dollars wild pollinators are worth. You cannot really boycott the beekeeping industry without boycotting food in general (yes even the precious fruits & vegetables). Beekeepers will drive bee hives all over the country to pollinate farmers crops in return for money- this is a staple of commercial beekeeping.

Edit: @Gatorgirl: Colony collapse disorder is not due to people smoking bee's hives, but rather from a huge combination of bee management factors. If you really want to go into colony collapse disorder then read this much more up-to-date National Geographic article on the matter (i am shocked at how this unqualified Maneka Gandhi is making such sweeping assumptions on the issue);

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/…

I have done a lot of research of colony collapse disorder and nowhere have i seen any reputable sources claim the smoking of bee's being it's cause. The use of mega crops, pesticide producing GM crops, pesticides, herbicides & fungicides in general & the moving of bee hives has far stronger links to colony collapse disorder.
I have also never heard of bee keepers killing their bees in the winter because they "cost" to much to keep- bee's hibernate during the winter and cost nothing to keep. If anything killing the bee's will cost much more money as then the beekeeper will have to buy new bee's the next year. The most profitable side of bee keeper is not in honey production but rather the renting of bee's to farmers for crop pollination and its this crop pollination that is where the bee colony collapse disorder is happening.

Honey is made by bees which is an animal. Yes, some bees are injured when honey is harvested. Also, you're taking food from the honey bee.

If you're truly a vegan, you should not eat honey.

The cruel thing about honey is the fact that we take it away from the bees. I'm sure there are a ton of different reasons. You should try molasses or agave nectar instead of honey for a vegan substitute.

The other answer may be correct for commercially produced honey in some countries, but it is possible to keep bees and produce your own honey without all the cruelty.

My parents in law kept bees

I think it is so ironic the way some veg/vegans talk and act towards some situations they seem to go against animals than help them. When it comes to bees they say it is cruel and we should leave well alone bla bla. FACT is bee keepers are protecting and help the species thrive from possible extinction. They are setting up hives any where they can to increase their numbers in city's, towns, villeges and the country. Anywhere that has space and a person willing to take their time to learn and look after them. We help them in turn to help us, if it was not for the bees a lot of veg/vegans would starve, again more uneducated talk from them.

If you want to make a better planet for you and your family give more consideration and care for bee's by buying local produce to help the bee keeper continue. Maybe take up some classes to start one of your own if you can and create a safe and inviting enviroment for them.

I think it is disgusting what some veg/vegans are saying on here, they do not want to help nature at all!!

Addition: In an idieal world bee's do not need bee keepers BUT the human race impacts on the world so so much by spreading across the land building concrete citys and towns reducing the amont of plants habitat for them to live out a natrual life!! Also to assure to feed the growing nation they need to use pestasides from seed to crop so the seeds are coated before planting to give the crop a chance to survive and bring a high yeld BUT this has side effects and bee's which feed of them are seen to go a bit mad and die. If people want to make a comment against using bee products then try doing some research of what is happening and WHY we ALL need to help the bee. The problem we have right now is the attatuide is its either i don't care, never giving it any thought or lets leave it to nature is diabolical we destroy it we need to sort it. Bee's along with other things need our help as we are growing too fast for them to adapt hence bee keepers and creating nature gardens. The minute I moved into my house I started with buying plants that the bee's would love and I had loads of bee's coming to my garden. What is wrong with helping nature at least some of us are doing something than doing NOTHING.

Always thinking of nature. UK

Saw this great article by Maneka Gandhi that does a great job of explaining why honey's so cruel. I couldn't find a link but have posted the whole article below. It's a good read.

Stop cruelty to honey bees

Maneka Gandhi

In one of my favourite books , 'So Long and Thanks for all the Fish' by Douglas Adams, the first sign of the end of the world is that the dolphins disappear. In reality it is when the bees leave. And that they are doing. Over the last 3 years, 70% of the bees have disappeared from their manmade hives. No bodies have been found, no reasons have been found by scientists for this extraordinary disappearance called Colony Collapse Disorder. Let me tell you the reason why I think the bees simply called it quits and went to the great Beeworld in the Sky.

Honey is what bees vomit out. This bee vomit has been given many mythical properties of health. Unfortunately these attributes have caused the suffering and death of millions of bees.

Bees are victims of the same cruel treatment given to animals in the animal food industry. They are pushed into boxes , given invasive examinations, handled crudely, given artificial food, drugs and pesticides,manipulated genetically, grown through artificial insemination, transported by air, rail and road and then killed

When beekeepers handle combs many bees are crushed and killed. Hives have smoke puffed into them to make bees dizzy and easier to handle. Special devices are attached to hives to collect bee products from bees as they enter their hives. Bees are separated from their hives by being shaken vigorously or thrown out with powerful streams of air. They may have their legs and wings clipped off. Queen bees have their wings clipped to prevent them from flying off.

When it is not profitable to keep bees through the winter they are killed. One way is by dousing the hive with petroleum, then burning it. Other times they are simply left to starve to death, after the honey is taken. Hives are burned when there is a disease outbreak. Some bees are killed because they eat honey but do not do enough work.

Like cows and chickens, bees are used as biomachines to make a product for human consumption. Like all forms of slavery in the modern world, they are seen only for their use-value, or how they serve to benefit their 'owner.' They can only gather a tiny amount of pollen in each trip, 75,000 miles of travel to gather enough pollen to produce just one pound of honey. They do all of this work to create food for their own consumption alone; not for that of human beings. If bees were human, this abusive treatment would be considered, by all, to be slavery.

A bee is a living, breathing creature. The act of taking away food produced for themselves is robbery with armed force because the bees do not give honey – in fact they defend it being taken away. In order for bees to survive when the honey is stolen, a white sugar syrup is given to them. This substitute is not nutritionally adequate for the bee and chronic malnutrition leaves them exposed to disease. Because of this, antibiotics like Tetracycline, Terramycin and Sodium Sulfathiosole are mixed with the sugar substitute. The hives are sprayed with synthetic pesticides to kill bacteria which might harm the weakened bees. Queen bees are artificially inseminated with sperm obtained from decapitated bees. The Queens are slaughtered every two years as their egg producing abilities decline due to the bad diet. The successor queen is selected by a human instead of the reigning queen and is artificially inseminated. Queens come from commercial queen suppliers. The queens with a few nursing bees are kept in cages and taken around the country. Travel can be rough on the queens; they can be over heated, chilled, left out in the sun for hours , banged around in baggage compartments. Hives which are families of bees from the same mother are routinely split in half according to what the keeper wants, not the queen.

The food industry has used these artificially managed honeybees to pollinate crops because wild bees and other insects (who would naturally pollinate crops) have been destroyed by housing developments, industrial pollution, pesticide poisoning, intensive farming practices, destruction of hedgerows, etc. The use of honeybees for pollination is now big business . Commercial beekeepers move hives to get pollination fees. Bees are bought and sold worldwide resulting in the bees (and their hives) being transported hundreds or thousands of miles. Transportation means bees may suffer stress, suffocation, overheating or cold. Many die in their packaged coffins. Bees are transported to strange countries and cause problems in those natural environments. They are subsequently treated as feral and nests are destroyed by pouring petrol in hives or killed by spraying with liquid soap. On top of all this , their honey is taken away.

The honey industry is for nothing. Like the meat trade, it is simply pr

The copy and paste button!