Product of abuse?
I have a vegan acquaintance. He is a mild, considerate, and generally pleasant young man. He thinks that beekeeping is cruel and inhumane. He tells me that honey-eating encourages theft and the abuse, imprisonment and exploitation of insects. “Tell me more,” I said.
Vegans, my friend told me, feel that if you eat honey, you harm the environment and you injure your health. I think that my friend and others like him make these false statements because they don’t know how honey is made nor how bees are kept. Such narrow thoughts give reasonable vegetarians a bad name. Much misinformation is rooted in an almost cult-like adherence to dogma created by the revered Donald Watson, founder of the vegan movement.
Godlike, Don Watson leads the way
Defenseless and dead
75 years ago, Don Watson invented the word Vegan and constructed much of the philosophy that goes with it. Mr Watson was a very, very, nasty man. Whether he hated the plant kingdom, or just didn’t know any better, is up for debate. But he savagely attacked plants of all sorts. His profession was teaching woodworking. He encouraged untold thousands of British youngsters to destroy stately trees (many over a hundred years old). He inspired them to cut down living denizens of the forest, strip off their bark, rip into their hearts with power tools, then hammer nails through their defiled bodies. He showed people how to turn beautiful elms, oaks, and maples into bookshelves and grandiose chairs upon which to seat their bottoms.
It’s as if Watson, the first vegan, had no clue that the plants he encountered are (were) living, breathing monuments to the diversity of nature. Agreed, they don’t breathe oxygen the way we do but does that give Watson and his minions the right to recklessly consume plants? Rather than taking sustenance from animals such as bees – which aren’t killed in the process of honey-making and which help, not hurt, plants – Watson rejected honey.
Instead, Watson encouraged boiling the seedy offspring of wheat and shredding the greenery of lettuce and then eating it. Plants are defenseless. They can’t run. They can’t sting. To suggest that it’s more ethical to consume plants instead of honey is farcical, disingenuous, and wrong. Most plants are still alive when they enter a vegan’s mouth. As disgusting as this is, it’s doubly disheartening that these same people portend to subscribe to a superior lifestyle and tell others to shun honey.
And yet, largely because of Watson’s philosophy, vegans claim the ethical high ground. Because of Watson, honey is strictly forbidden. I can understand opposition to concrete zoos, factory farms with warehoused pigs, and chickens caged in tiny pens. These are obviously, ethically wrong. But when Watson wrote the rules, his enthusiasm for the rights of all other living creatures (except plants) outdistanced his common sense. [Some Vegans seem to venerate Watson as a god (something that would probably have amused the deceased agnostic) so I expect to get some vicious e-mail from these gentle people.] Watson hadn’t bothered to understand the way bees are actually cared for by millions of backyard beekeepers.
About bees
Unlike plants, bees can defend themselves against wanton abuse. Most hobby beekeepers would never kill a single bee. Bees are absolutely free to range over kilometres of wildflowers. Bees return each night to their hives, which are boxes that keep bees safe, dry, and warm. If they didn’t want to return, they wouldn’t. But time after time, they come back to the beekeepers’ boxes. Beekeepers have experimentally placed empty beekeepers’ boxes alongside trees – bees select the boxes as their preferred homes. But bees can leave whenever they want.
The fuzzy photo to the left shows wild combs, hanging in a birch tree. This was built by bees which died of exposure. I took the picture in Pennsylvania, years ago. I wish I had found them in time to put them into a safe dry warm bee box where they would have survived and flourished. On their own, subject to cold and rain, they died.
Bees produce thousands of grams of honey during a season but beekeepers remove just a fraction of it in exchange for giving the bees a safe home. Beekeepers don’t ‘take all the bees’ honey’ as I’ve read on various vegan sites because if they did, the bees would die. Dead bees are not the beekeeper’s objective. (Though dead trees are certainly a woodworker’s.)
Some vegan websites lament that beekeepers feed sugar and corn syrup to bees, which the vegans correctly tell us are not as healthy as honey. Those complainants should learn something about ecology. There are seasons when honey bees can’t find food on their own. Even in sunny Florida, where I worked alongside bees for about ten years, dearths happen in mid-summer when citrus trees, gallberry, palmetto, and pepperbush aren’t in bloom. Without a friendly beekeeper feeding the bees, the bees die. Now I live in Canada. Here, after seven months of cold and ice each year, hives often run short of food in April. Without flowers, bees die. So beekeepers feed them. Without beekeepers, there would be no honey bees in western Canada.
Is honey healthy?
Vegans tell us that honey is healthier than sugar or corn syrup for bees; yet they also claim that honey is not healthy for people. Let’s remind them that honey is actually a healthy food. Bees collect nectar from flowers. The nectar is sucrose plus some fructose and glucose. Bees continue the job that flowers started, using enzymes to convert nearly all the disaccharides (sucrose) into simpler monosaccharides – fructose and glucose. These simpler sugars are much better for the diets of bees and humans (and bears, raccoons, badgers, and other mammals). Honey is healthier. Perhaps it’s the healthiest sugar people can eat. It’s certainly the least environmentally intrusive.
If honey is healthy, why do vegans say it’s not? Well, making such an unfounded claim (they hope) may reduce honey consumption, which (they think) will liberate enslaved honey bees from the hives of beekeepers. As we’ve already seen, honey bees are free to leave the beekeepers. They are already liberated. But without beekeepers, billions of honey bees would die – which, I guess, is a fate more acceptable to some vegans. So, vegan claims against honey as food are self-serving and unfounded.
And yet, many (all?) vegan websites advise against eating honey. “Even if honey were the healthiest food on the planet, there is still no reason for a vegan to consume it,” says this voice of veganism site. Alternatives are suggested. In those alternatives we find the real Achilles’ heel of veganism.
On this page, you will find approved alternatives to honey. These include coconut sugar and molasses. Want to really hurt the environment and kill animals? Then do what the vegans recommend and use coconut sugar and molasses. Have it processed in a food factory and shipped halfway around the world to reach you.
A vegan wants you to eat plants, of course. But, unless vegans are incredibly naive, and have no clue at all about farming (even ‘organic’ farming), vegans miss the point that trillions of insects – from worms to beetles – die in the production of the rice and barley syrup, and the beet and cane sugar which they think you should eat. Farmers must rip through the soil and control insects that would eat their crops. They dislodge mice and lizards to make way for the cane and beets that will end up as molasses. The pursuit of coconut sugar has led to deforestation and death for millions of animals. I know that some hope/think/pretend that they are buying ethically-produced food, but too often they are simply buying secular indulgences to assuage their conscience – they are still getting food that required the death of insects, and sometimes mammals. And these substitutes are produced on the other side of the globe while honey can be purchased locally, greatly reducing the environmental footprint. Only honey can be produced without harming or killing animals. Yet vegans refuse to concede this because it would go against their tribal allegiance to the philosophical proclamations of Donald Watson – regardless of how wrong he may have been on some points.
No free passes
I was a vegetarian for over a year and it was a healthy, energized year. I was not a vegan. As a vegetarian, I ate honey. I used a little cheese and milk in some veggie dishes. Today, I eat fish. In a social setting, I might eat other meat, but sparingly. I think it’s smart for the environment and healthy for the body to eat a wide variety of foods, but only a little or no meat. It’s certainly healthier for the livestock. However, zealous vegans drive away potential vegetarians. Vegan hypocrisy is a turn-off and has probably resulted in a bigger backlash against animal rights and against reasonable vegetarianism than it has resulted in new memberships in the vegan fan club. For that, I hold the woodcutter Don Watson and some of his followers responsible.
Nor will I give a free pass to all beekeepers everywhere. It’s true that some beekeepers – hobbyists and commercial – aren’t as careful with bees as they need to be. That’s what the vegans tell us when they raise their concerns. But most are not reckless and I’ve never met any beekeeper who disliked bees; they want the best for bee welfare – and I have met hundreds more beekeepers than any vegan ever has. Honey bees are thriving because beekeepers are keeping them alive and healthy. That’s what beekeepers want. Further, beekeepers don’t eat their bees, nor do they make furniture out of them. And that’s more than can be said about Don Watson and his relationship with trees.
Bad Beekeeping Blog 
I think a lot of this is parody and its funny enough. But were curious about you saying you a vegetarian that eats meat “in a social setting?” Whats that – peer Pressure?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks for commenting. I admit that this blog is about half satire. The point is that people sometimes follow dogma religiously – without thinking. Coming back to the vegan movement’s founder, Donald Watson, he was, for example, a pacifist. When World War II began, he was an able-bodied 29-year-old. I can see sticking by your convictions if there’s a bar-room brawl or if your country invades some other country for no reason. But he was a Brit, London was being bombed, and brown-shirted Nazi thugs were slaughtering innocent people. He should have fought. Similarly, too many people don’t think critically or think for themselves. If the tribe says “don’t eat honey” but eat coconut sugar and molasses, then that’s what they do – without investigating and reasoning and weighing the evidence.
Yes, I eat meat occasionally. Here in Canada, we just had Thanksgiving, and I had some turkey. If I eat out at a restaurant, I order vegetarian or fish. But if I visit someone who is unaware of my quirky habits and they’ve gone through the work of making a special dinner, I eat a little of everything. I know that purists will disagree, but this isn’t a mindless dogma for me. It’s a healthy and environmentally positive choice and I’m 90% there. For one year, I was 100% vegetarian, now it’s 90%. Shame on me, eh?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I like your balanced approach; unless there’s a serious food allergy, I try to eat a little of what someone kindly offers me, even if it’s not something I’d make for myself.
LikeLiked by 3 people
No shame on you Ron, it’s really refreshing to find an honest, careful thinking vegetarian/omnivore, that doesn’t simply follow mindless dogma
LikeLiked by 2 people
Because omnivores never eat plants or use wooden furniture. Because people don’t feed farm animals plants and destroy the environment to raise farm animals. Farmer’s feed their animals air. The animals then poop air. No insects are ever harmed in the growing of soy for the animals.
LikeLike
??? Sorry, I don’t understand you. You lost me right after your first word: “Because…”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“carrots scream when you pull them out of the ground”.. L Cohen…..which reminds me that mine are still mostly in the garden and I should go dig them. We keep ours in peat moss and they usually stay crisp until Feb or so, it also quiets them down a bit. ….. I enjoy your posts Ron.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks! Appreciate the comments!
Do you use reddit? It would be great to have you or other readers plug favourites at https://www.reddit.com/r/Beekeeping/ if you like a post!
I’m a fan of Leonard Cohen, but don’t remember the screaming carrots… what was that from?
– Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
beautiful losers i think, I read that before i was twenty and I’m pushing sixty five now, funny how some things stay with you. One of my daughters pulled this off reddit and sent it to me the other day, not about bees but i enjoyed it, cheers garry….https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow, thanks again for your comments – I’d never read the Mathematician’s Lament before, but tonight, thanks to your link, I have. I like the leading parables. The entire lament is so well crafted, filled with powerful gems and a clear strong argument. About halfway through there is a diagram of a triangle inside a semicircle. When I finished reading the paper, I called my ten-year-old daughter over to see the diagram. “Look, Helen, do you see how the triangles are all right-angled?” She said, “I know, Dad. I was playing around with some sketches a long time ago and I noticed that.” I was so moved by what she said – it was like I suddenly had renewed hope for the future of humanity. Thank you, Garry!
– Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes I think it’s almost impossible to eat food which hasn’t harmed the environment in one way or another, unless you have space to grow all your own produce. Hobby beekeepers are usually gentle to their bees, but I dislike the commercial methods of beekeeping shown in the film ‘More than honey’, where forklifts pick up honey boxes and dump them onto mechanical production lines, which results in huge numbers of squashed bees.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I agree. There are some rough beekeepers. Also some commercial operators who are extremely careful. The problem to me is, as you point out, it’s almost impossible to eat some food that doesn’t harm the environment. I think that honey is probably less harmful than any other food.
LikeLike
Update/correction/change: Someone pointed out to me that I had written “plants breathe carbon dioxide” or something like that. The genius said it was stupid to write about a plant’s use of CO2 that way. (Plants metabolize oxygen, as we learned in Grade 10 biology.) Anyway, I removed the line so as not to distract people who can’t read poetry. Some people are like that.
Others have remarked that it’s not fair to pick on Vegans. I agree. Vegans are great, I wasn’t trying to pick on them, unless they honour allegiance to dogma over introspection. It’s their philosophy that needs a deep think and that’s what this piece was about… Most people got that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You say Their like all vegans are exactly the same. That’s a huuuge generalization. You’re entire spiel was a generalization what vegan hurt you?
LikeLike
Hi Ray,
Thank you for contributing to this discussion with your meaningful insights. Unfortunately, I am having difficulty following your argument. When you write “Their like all vegans are exactly the same” – did you actually intend to write “They are” instead of “Their”? This small correction, which might have been achieved if you had read your comment before posting it, would have helped clarify your query.
Although I appreciate your concern for my welfare, I can assure you that several of my comrades are vegans and no vegan whom I have encountered has been capable of hurting me. Meanwhile, thanks again for your comment. Please write again after you have achieved the ability to construct lucid sentences and after you have generated additional profundities to add to this discourse.
Regards,
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
HI, very interesting stuff about Don Watson—I am a vegan, but don’t know about any of the orthodoxy. What a horrible, hypocritical stance the guy operated from! I just don’t like the idea of taking the lives of animals for food as if they give up their lives willingly for me or anyone. But, I have struggled with vegans arguing about the honey issue, and it often seems rooted in heavy management techniques like artificially re-queening (and killing the old queen) and over harvesting. One thing most vegans of this persuasion don’t realize (and this relates to your photo of the open air hive in the birch tree) is the work I do in California saving bee colonies in conflict with humans. Extermination is the only other avenue, and by re-homing hives from trees, under shed floors, in walls and ceilings and a million other places, I save their lives and their hard work—wax combs and honey and brood. Education about this work often makes a whole new aspect of veganism appear.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks for the comments. It’s great that you’re involved in bee rescues – that’s hard work and sometimes not much appreciated.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Vegans, killing plants at an unprecedented rate…stop
The insanity lol…people in the city that have been brainwashed, absolutely no clue about a lot of things including beekeepers and honeybees…without beekeepers and bees all these brainless vegans would be dead by now because the plant food they rely on to survive would not reproduce without pollination.. such a stupid world we live in!
LikeLike
Well that’s amazingly false. There are many other pollinators out there (including humans who pollinate some crops by hand). How do you think we grew crops before we figured out beekeeping? Wild pollinators like it’s always been. Honeybees are bad for the environment because they spread disease to wild bees and compete with other pollinators. Btw, moths pollinate better than bees.
Maybe get educated before spouting nonsense.
LikeLike
Well that’s amazingly false. There are many other pollinators out there (including humans who pollinate some crops by hand). How do you think we grew crops before we figured out beekeeping? Wild pollinators like it’s always been. Honeybees are bad for the environment because they spread disease to wild bees and compete with other pollinators. Btw, moths pollinate better than bees.
Maybe get educated before spouting nonsense.
LikeLike
What with all of the other factors that are currently killing bees, that include Zika spraying and other uses of insecticide, and such, would it not be a good idea to back of on making it harder for the bees to thrive by taking their food and making them work harder to keep up their food supply, by simply stopping taking their food, at least until the mysteries of why the bees are dying off is completely solved, removed and prevented, and bees are thriving and growing in population worldwide?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Debby,
Thanks for your comments. I understand your point – if honey bee colonies are disappearing, then leaving their honey might make their numbers increase.
But here’s the thing – the number of colonies of honey bees has been steadily increasing. The last case of colony collapse disorder was over five years ago. Around the world, the number of bee colonies has increased over 60% in the past 50 years. Your home state – Washington – went from 44,000 hives in 2002 to 69,000 colonies last year. Canada, where I live, has never – in all its 150-year history – had as many colonies of bees. In the USA as a whole, numbers were over 3 million colonies last July. That’s up from about 2.1 million colonies just ten years ago.
The great increase in honey bee colonies does not mean that we can ignore pollution, toxic chemicals, or climate change. It just means that beekeepers have been keeping their hives alive and numbers of colonies are increasing even while facing great obstacles. However, the thesis that leaving honey in the hives would solve “the mysteries of why the bees are dying off” is flawed because bees kept by beekeepers are not dying off. Worrying about honey bees is not a reason to avoid eating honey.
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ron—I think these numbers are not a honest portrayal of the situation, and I have argued with others about the same point. First, industrial pollinator operaters have been splitting the survivors, gaining two weaker colonies from whatever managed to make it through the insults. This “numbers” assessment does not recognize quality or viability, only raw numbers. In the movie “More Than Honey” we see Dave Hackenberg shoving his survivors through a mechanical splitter. It is pretty horrific viewing. Second, the pastoralists of the world—Africa, India, SE Asia—are not economically able to keep bees on the same cycle of chemical treatments, make purchases from breeders, and transport to crops, so their numbers may add to the total but their management techniques can be no way compared to the typical migratory population used here or in Europe. As for the comments Debbie makes about taking the bees food—that is not the goal of migratory operations anyway. The insults in that model are the long distance trucking, the lack of diverse, abundant forage, the chemical treatments PUT IN the hives by the beeks, the HFCS and soy based “pollen” feeds, the synergism and residues of various pesticides, herbicides and fungicides on target crops, and the genetic inbred nature of the bees used.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Susan. You have helped with your details and background. [However, I don’t think that it was David Hackenberg who was shown dividing his bees with a “mechanical splitter” but it was a west-coast beekeeper instead.] Most of your points are right. My figures on the numbers of kept honey bees are as correct as they can be (bee censuses are always a bit flawed) but you have helped explain the economics involved in those numbers. – Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your reply and for the update on the increase in number of bee colonies. I did not know that there is rise in the population of bees worldwide, if that is what you meant.
I would like to clarify something.
My original comment of “stopping taking their food, at least until the mysteries of why the bees are dying off is completely solved, removed and prevented” may be unclear or not easily understood.
I asked why not leave the honey alone until the mysteries of the bee’s decline is solved, not “the thesis that leaving honey in the hives would solve “the mysteries of why the bees are dying off”. There is difference between these two statements and the first one is what I meant. My mentioning of leaving the honey alone is by way of giving the bees a break from having to work so hard to gather their food, when they already have so many struggles to just exist.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi, Debby—I am a beekeeper, so I should clarify what “splitting” is as a technique. A strong hive can be divided —if the hive is 4 boxes tall, two boxes may be separated to form a new colony separated from the other two. It does not matter where the queen ends up, because the hive without a queen will immediately raise a replacement. This is one way commercial migratory pollinator operations increase their hive numbers after a die off of some hives.
Taking or leaving the honey, again, is not the goal of the great majority of hive owners in the world and is not necessarily the source of the major insults affecting honey bees. Using the hives as “service providers” (pollination services, greatly enhancing the yield of nuts or fruit) for crops is the goal and the way the charge is billed to the farmer. About $185 per 2 box stack in California for almonds. (this number could have changed this year)
Second this remark “why the bees are dying off is completely solved, removed and prevented” will never happen in the modern world of intense, industrialized agricultural models. “…mysteries of the bee’s decline is solved,” is NOT a mystery, it is more of a inconvenience to profit that keeps the current model going. The media portrays the situation disingenuously, partly because they do not understand the biology of bees and the craft of beekeeping, so they write it is a “mystery” The problems are not a “IT” anyway, they are multifactorial (as I mentioned in my first note) It would help all pollinators, not just Apis mellifera, the European honey bee, if we kept bees ON SITE, not trucking them thousands of miles, and if farmers provided habitat (some land taken for production of the cash crop would have to yield) with diverse, non-chemically treated forage plants. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has made a intense effort to work with farmers, do research, and provide on-line education for these goals.
Finally, this “…giving the bees a break from having to work so hard to gather their food” They will work just as hard whether the keeper takes honey or does not take honey—if none is taken, they simply put more by as excess, and will perhaps swarm. “Excess” means more than needed for dearth periods. This is the skill of the good keeper—determining what is excess and what is needed for the demands of the season and hive population. Bees don’t take breaks. Each bee passes through a series of “jobs” in her life—part of the Queen’s retinue, taking out the trash, guard bee, transporter bee, wax drawing bee, nurse bee, pollen gathering bee or nectar gathering bee—the last two generally the final, most dangerous job, since it involves leaving the safety of the hive.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thank you for the information Susan.
I am not a “bee keeper” but I have a keen interest in them and having them thrive.
I am wondering if there is any thinking in your comment that are an assumption, and anything you are taking for granted? And what information is missing in your comment?
In other words, if bees could tell us in their own words what’s up, I wonder what they’d tell us. Like “Gee whiz. Please don’t smoke us out inside our homes! By Golly! Don’t you know that smoke hurts us like it can hurt you too?” ? and “Yes. We DO need a break from gathering honey! What makes this think otherwise?”? and so forth.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Debby, Thanks very much for your questions and comments. We can ponder the potential anthropomorphic musings of honey bees but most good beekeepers are motivated to keep bees healthy and to reduce their stress. Thanks again for contributing. – Ron
LikeLike
Hi, Debby—the honey bees we are “keeping” in America are not native to the country. They were brought with the Europeans several hundred years ago. So, much of the knowledge about their behavior has accumulated from the living with them and observing them. One of the most insightful observers was a man named Francis Huber, a Frenchman who was blind and wrote of his experiments with honey bees from 1789 to 1814. Now, you might wonder how someone without sight could do much science, but he made up for it with his brain, a dedicated wife and a dedicated assistant. His books “Huber’s New Observations Upon Bees” Vol 1 and 2 have been translated into English several time. I have Michael Bush’s version. He corrected many of the “assumptions” (since you mention them) that were common at the time regarding the social structure of the bee colony, the three categories of bees—drones, workers, Queen—and made many deeply thoughtful recordings of what bees do throughout the year in response to weather, forage and colony dynamics.
Bees do not “gather honey” but they gather nectar and via adding enzymes and drying, turn the nectar into honey. Much of what I have learned is based on the biology of bees as studied by various scientists who wish to learn how bees navigate, see, communicate to their sisters, make collaborative decisions (bees do not operate as individuals, but as a so-called “superorganism”) identify nectar and pollen sources, and MANY other behaviors. Because of the modern age and its use of micro-electronics, scientists have been able to attach individual microchips to bees to learn some of the answers to these questions. A wonderful book to understand the many activities of a colony of honey bees is the one by Jurgen Tautz “The Buzz About Bees—Biology of a Superorganism” It is full of helpful photographs, too, and if you really want to know about honey bees (not solitary or native bees, remember, they are different) this is a great book. This is how I learned that bees do not “take breaks” from work. It is simply not their biological makeup.
What would HELP honey bees and ALL pollinators—as well as birds, amphibians, reptiles, arthropods, soil microbes, (humans….) etc would be to stop using so many fossil fuel derived chemicals and follow a model of regenerative agriculture. This I noted in the second post already
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Susan, thanks for helping Debby and other readers understand this complicated issue. The number of kept bees correlates with the profitability of beekeeping and farming compared to other pursuits. You have done a nice job in explaining some of the things involved in beekeeping. I don’t agree with every statement, but I can understand and appreciate your points. Thanks for contributing! – Ron
LikeLike
Hi again 🙂 Thank you for the corrections in my language of “bee keeping, and all of the references to books and other sources of information Susan.
If I may continue along the persistent thought I am having about taking the honey from the bees, and whether or this negatively impacts them, I would like to do this here.
From what I understand, it is the assumed “excess” honey that is taken from the bees? IF this so, what happens to the health of the bees when the “excess” remains, as opposed to when it is removed? I am also wondering about who are we to determine what is “excess”. To the bees this may be their stored up and saved up supply for some healthy reason(s)?
Has anyone or any group actually scientifically documented any subtle and any not so subtle differences between leaving their “excess” food alone and removing all of it?
Why do bee create this “excess” honey anyways? Is this because it is healthy for them to do do?
IF so, when it is removed by humans, do the bees become unhealthy? If it is not removed to the bees become unhealthy?
Do the worker bees keep on working even though they have a humanly perceived large amount of
“excess” honey stored up already?
When honey bees live freely of any human interaction, what happens to all of the “excess” honey?
And so on.
LikeLike
Hi, Debby—regarding this and the other questions you just posted “…Do the worker bees keep on working even though they have a humanly perceived large amount of
“excess” honey stored up already?” I think I answered this in the first post back to you. Finally, you will learn much of the background to the inquiries you pose by reading from the many selections I wrote in the last post. The best way for you to get this information, as a person not able to interact with bee hives whether totally wild or managed, is to read the literature.
LikeLike
Hi – I understand that there is literature to read, but I am cautious about reading the literature you referred me to, and here is why. I am cautious about falling into the mental trap of believing anything I read to be true, and especially when I am naive on what I am reading about.
I have learned and observed myself and others fall into this trap and stay there, inside the limited mental confines of someone’s or some group’s limited belief system, that is ego-centric, or in this instance, does not include knowing what honey bees really want and need and is not willing to admit to this, nor even reflect on this.
If I may, the types of questions I have asked here are ones that in your future ventures in any Q&As may be asked by others, or maybe you would like bring these types of questions up as another interesting way to think about honey bees?
LikeLike
Hi, Debby—it’s up to you. We all have to start somewhere. I sure did. But reading does not inevitably lead to a “mental trap”
LikeLike
Hi Susan –
If I may, the following info I will share seems Off Topic but pertains to our discussion.
During the past 2015-2016 US Presidential Election, I became even more interested than ever in why American citizens could not understand each others’ points of view, come to an solid agreement, could not have rational discussion based on evident facts, nor be humbly open to changing their minds if proven wrong by sound arguments. I am so interested in this that I have already taken online courses on how to teach critical thinking and am continuing into another online course as I type and post this.
Here is how what I shared pertains to our discussion.
I am attempting to stretch my thinking to be fair-minded and open-minded towards the honey bees’ perspectives so that I can have more empathy and compassion for them. I have already read and listened to human’s thoughts and discussion on their own human perspectives about what they THINK bees’ needs are, and I have observed humans act out these thoughts upon honey bees for years.
My purpose is to help not only myself think more deeply about the bees but to share with this others, like I am attempting to do here. My purpose to help myself become less self-serving and justifying in my thinking and actions without laying on any guilt-trips onto myself and onto anyone else.
There is much more to discuss along this vein, but this is enough for now.
LikeLike
Hi Debby, I’m sorry that I misinterpreted your point about removing honey/ solving bee die-off. My apologies for my mistake.
I see that one of our readers has helped by jumping in with some very valuable information (Thank you, Susan!) The numbers of hives I gave are accurate, commerically kept (and hobby hives) have been increasing for economic reasons – beekeepers get paid for honey and for pollination and these have been modestly profitable lately, adding to the bee counts. I’m glad that Susan took the time to help clarifying this and giving some background. – Ron
LikeLike
Ha ha!! I am stuck in the house all day today since we are experiencing a deluge of rain in Los Angeles. So, I can diddle on the computer and keep watch on my leaking roof—towels everywhere! But the good thing is—the drought is vanquished! Lots of bee flowers this year!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Ron. Thanks for the apology. I can understand that confusion though. A possible reason for this confusion, is that I am finding that my question/comment is not usually found online or anywhere else, so it is new to read and think about.
LikeLike
Thanks for the nice remarks, Ron. I guess I assumed it was Dave Hackenberg as I believe he was in the scene just prior to the splitter scene. Wasn’t that him going through hives one after the other and finding deadouts? It HAS been a long time since I saw premier of the film in Beverly Hills—Marcus Imhoof’s staff asked me to come to the opening showings to answer questions from the audience afterward regarding feral bees and keeping them. You’ll remember the final scenes were of the Arizona beek taking a colony out of a boxed in eave.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is this the ‘splitter scene’ you are thinking of?
LikeLike
Yeah! think that’s it—what do you say they are doing? I remember the camera going very close in and you see all the bees getting mashed and drowning in honey.
LikeLike
These are not Hackenberg’s bees.
LikeLike
Yes, I see from the enlargement, its another big outfit, Miller’s. They are well known commercials. But do you say they are not splitting hives or are they? It looks like it to me in the film
LikeLike
The clip seems to show an assembly-line process for making splits. I’ve split hives, of course. So did the ‘Grandpa’ in the movie. It’s part of beekeeping. The operators were not intentionally trying to hurt bees – it would make no sense and these are not cruel people. However, the film tries to portray them in a very bad way. I think things will change in agriculture – but meanwhile, 7 billion people need to eat and millions of almond trees need pollinated. Keep advocating and offering suggestions for the rest of us.
LikeLike
Ron—OK—I see that it WAS a mechanical splitter mechanism. Of course, beeks do splits, I do splits, but this scene, as I remember, was not explained, just portrayed after the one with the many deadouts turning up. So, only someone knowing beekeeping would know what the end result was desired—getting more colonies from the survivors. I also remember the owner saying something about his father, or grandfather, looking down from “above” at his management and wondering where the soul of the thing went. Do you remember that?
Ah! the 7 billion people! My first foray into activism was with addressing the unsustainable rate of human population growth and the group started by Paul Ehrlich of Stanford— ZPG. When I was in college in the 70s through the 80s—I was the LA chapter chair. That opens up a whole new discussion….
LikeLike
I have had correspondence with John Miller several times. He strongly urged me to bring the message of TF beekeeping and using feral genetics to the “BeeAudacious” conference in Marin in December, but I could not find a way to make the 11 hour drive be worth the 2 hours of public participation allowed, so didn’t go. Mr Miller is the subject of the book “The Beekeeper’s Lament” and I have corresponded with the author, Hannah Nordhaus. She was quite prickley about some things I challenged her in regard to statements in the book—only about technical things, not about her rather overly solicitous characterization of Mr Miller—I did not want to voice that at all. She has written this, which I find fascinating in view of all the bees I rescue—
““Because of the varroa mite, wild honey bees are now, for all practical purposes, extinct in the United States.”
LikeLike
I’m mostly vegan, “In a social setting”, I’m vegetarian. And I realize it’s all too easy to become a fanatic, or to act holier than thou. Your post makes interesting reading and makes a case for moderation. Btw, this may not work in temperate climates, but I have been told by an Indian farmer how honey used to be harvested by his forefathers. When they found a wild beehive in the forest, they would throw a small stone into it. The honey would ooze out through the hole created, down a string attached to the stone, and be collected round the year in a pot placed on the ground. I like this kind of non-exploitative coexistence.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks for the interesting comments!
I will guess that the stone-throwing honey-collecting was used on the giant dorsata bee which is common in India but not found in temperate climates. Western honey bees nest inside cavities so their comb is not exposed. The dorsata builds large combs that are exposed. It does not make much honey and is suffering as people usually climb up to the nest and remove most of the honey with knives.
I’ve never heard of the stone and string trick. I’m not sure it would work, actually, and would love to see it in action. It seems to defy physics (and the viscosity of honey), it would yield only a tiny bit of honey where the stone hit, and if it has never been photographed, it might be rarely seen because it isn’t done much because it does not work well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Again, thanks for raising awareness of the vegan lunacy. I hand idea there was such a misconception about honey! which is perhaps the single greatest thing a human can consume!
LikeLiked by 2 people
There is a lot of misconception. Some beekeeping is pretty rough and not particularly bee-friendly, but beekeeping can be done without harming bees. And I agree, honey is good for us – as it says in Proverbs: “Eat honey, my son, for it is good!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amen! Its all throughout The Bible. My husband and I are going to -hopefully- start beekeeping next year. We have alot of research to do. It’s blogs like yours that help alot!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Crossroads: Can Christians be vegan?
The great irony here is that if you had done even a minimal amount of research on Donald Watson you would know that he was actually an amateur beekeeper. Although the current position of the UK Vegan Society is that honey is not vegan, Watson evidently didn’t subscribe to the same view back in 1947 when he founded the society. This makes your spiteful remarks about the man look rather ridiculous and ill-informed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Paul Russell,
Thank you for your comments and for your attempt to discredit me through a personal attack. Charming. It’s quite interesting to me that you would write “…if you had done even a minimal amount of research on Donald Watson you would know that he was actually an amateur beekeeper.” If he was, that would be totally irrelevant to the article which I wrote, except to highlight how incongruous veganism is. However, I was rather sure, from his writings, that he was NOT a beekeeper because he declared that keeping bees and eating their honey was cruel to the insects. Had he been a beekeeper, he would have know that beekeeping can be performed in a safe manner, injuring fewer creatures than, say, sugar production. If he kept bees at all, perhaps to pollinate his garden, it’s not mentioned in any of the sources, so my research doesn’t show it – it’s not mentioned in the biography which I read, nor in this 34-page interview of his life from the vegan society website, nor does a search of Donald Watson beekeeper bring up the vegan Donald Watson. (Although my search did yield a Quebec Donald Watson as a beekeeper, but not the vegan Watson. Maybe this confused you?)
But if Donald Watson, vegan, was a beekeeper, would he have written so vehemently against keeping bees and honey in 1944? [By the way, it was November 1944 that he and five others founded the Vegan Society, not in 1947 as you erroneously stated in your note.] Had he been a beekeeper, he would have known that keeping bees properly does not hurt bees – so I doubt that he was actually a beekeeper, Paul.
Paul, I appreciate corrections and feedback – they keep me on my toes – but please check your facts before writing. And since you have chosen a personal attack (“rather ridiculous and ill-informed” as you said), you won’t be commenting here again. Instead, may I kindly suggest that you spend your free time learning how honey can be made without injuring bees and how other sugars (which perhaps you cook with) are far less benign.
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
One problem here is, whenever someone levels such a hard assertion with NO citation to back it up, it makes the the whole comment read as subjective.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As a vegan, I appreciate this post. I have no problem with honey and beekeeping whatsoever, I’m even considering becoming a beekeeper. This was a great, informative post and I appreciate the satire. Thanks for the post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi and thanks for ‘getting it’ – some people don’t.
Don Watson was likely a kind and wonderful man. My satirical stab was not really about him but about people’s simple-minded allegiance to a single person or ideology, regardless of the original intent. I’ve met others who follow Watson’s advice on most dietary suggestions, but don’t do so ‘religiously’ – instead, they adjust for what works for their particular health issues and for what is best for the world and its creatures.
We know a lot more about ecology than Watson knew, almost a hundred years ago. My big issue with the honey debate is the fact that sugar production hurts more animals and insects than honey production, does far more environmental damage, and produces a food that’s harmful to people. I hope some day that the powers within the vegan society will be able to recognize those facts and rescind Don Watson’s mandates prohibiting the use of honey. Responsible beekeeping can be done.
Thanks for commenting.
Ron
LikeLike
Thanks for your post. I’m becoming vegan and I was curious about honey and bees. I was already leaning towards keeping honey and your post cemented that. I don’t see a problem with how most beekeepers treat their bees. Also bee population is declinging, so I see what beekeppers are doing as a good thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. Nice note. You might consider getting a colony for your backyard, if possible. Then you can control how the bees are handled. Or perhaps meet some like-minded person already doing good beekeeping in your neighbourhood and get honey from them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Grove Greenman and commented:
The tone of this article is satirical with content that is serious, informative, and thought-provoking. Also, the comment section is well worth a read because it does spawn a fair discussion. My personal feeling is that small-scale beekeepers produce an ecologically balanced product, with an understanding of metaphysics that are personal, local, and with a touch of love. Following doctrine blindly is not useful because we all, I hope, want to use our natural intelligence, wisdom, and right thinking morality to have our existence be a positive to the world.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks. This post is intended partly as satire, as you easily noticed. The original vegan was undoubtedly a nice guy. The fact that I’ve received a few nasty notes (not published here) regarding my portrayal of the man makes me realize that some (certainly not all) vegans take the teachings of Saint Watson as they would the words of a cult leader. With new science, progressing well beyond the 1940s, veganism and the musings of Don Watson are overdue for an update.
LikeLike
You should know that animals that are seen as gross don’t have rights. Everyone jumps to help animals like cattle and bees but no one gives a crap about flies, rats, snakes, vultures, earthworms, moths, moles, and other “pests”. I just thinl it’s funny that most vegans (that I’ve met) seem to really only care about “cute” animals. Also fish can’t actually feel pain so I think that a vegan can eat it without feeling terrible.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I understand your point. But why lump moles in with the ugly animals? I always liked moles.
Here’s a friendly one:
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hey, jackpeterlerings—I think your whole list of “pest” animals is highly subjective and without merit. For one thing, the human penchant to list certain critters as “pest” is driving a massive loss of the underpinnings of life on Earth. Please read “The Insect Apocalypse is Here” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html Also, it is considered dogmatic to assert “everyone jumps..” and “no one gives…” and “most vegans seem…” I do know people who are actively involved in re-habbing many of the creatures you list as pests, protecting their habitat, and studying their behaviors in the wild to quantify the ecological roles they play in maintaining healthy ecosystems that ALL of us need. Finally, please cite a source for your assertion ” fish can’t actually feel pain” I think this cannot be scientifically supported.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad to read in the comments that some of this is satire. The assumptions and generalizations about vegans are off-putting. I hope that the difference between killing plants (to eat them or make furniture) and killing animals is clear to you. And I fully understand someone not wanting to fight in a war. There are people (like myself) who have taken a vow of nonviolence. Like Gandhi, I am willing to die for a cause but there is no cause for which I will kill. Please recognize there are people who believe all willful killing is wrong. I appreciate your description of your beekeeping practices. I don’t believe one has to abstain from honey to be a vegan.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for your comment. Glad you caught the satire.
The bigger issue being addressed here is not veganism, but cult-like veneration and allegiance to a system invented by a person 70 years ago. You seem to have your own mind on this (as exemplified through your challenge to veganism when it comes to honey). Following a strict rule book can lead to inadvertent support of habitat destruction for commercial vegan palm oil or sugar cane production; clearing the land results in animals killed as collateral damage. But you know this already.
I would hope that when genocide is taking place, precepts of non-violence would be weighed against the deaths of innocents. Every person who refused, on principle, to fight in World War II was complicit in prolonging the mass murders of women and children – so I don’t excuse Don Watson on this one. I agree with you that Gandhi represents an admirable example of non-violence. But he exercised non-violence by risking his life for the betrodden, not by heading off to a forest to make furniture.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This appears to be half parody and half serious. Certainly, if you have been following the movement you know that it is specifically sentient life that we think can suffer. We have literally no reason to think that plants are conscious or can suffer.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You are right – this post is about 2/3 parody and 2/3 serious. But seriously, can you cite proof that plants can not suffer and are not sentient? On the contrary, we have this (and other articles) to consider:
Research Shows that Plants are Sentient: Will we act accordingly?
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re basically a big bunch of shit and everything you say is shit, wood is not a sentient being you’re an idiot the only way you’re ever going to know the truth is to respect all of nature all non-human animals embrace veganism.
LikeLike
Hey, you’ve certainly got me figured out! Bravo! Doesn’t ‘respecting all of nature’ mean we have to quit eating plants? Especially since we have begun to recognize vegetation as truly magnificent sentient life-forms:
Research Shows that Plants are Sentient: Will we act accordingly?
LikeLike
As a vegan, it’s really quite simple for me: bees, nor any other animal exist solely for my benefit. Therefore I feel harvesting their bodies/products is immoral. We know for certain that an abundance of animals feel pain, love, joy, sadness, grief, and several more feelings and emotions. Until research can tell me plants feel all of those things as well, I will continue to feel that eating plants is the lesser of two evils.
LikeLike
Thank you for your note. I hope that no one really believes “bees, nor any other animal exist solely for my benefit.” That would be quite an unfortunate, dysfunctional, narcissistic attitude.
I would like to repeat that honey bees can be maintained ethically. Considering the alternatives, and the damage to landscape that accompanies “plant-based” sugar production – plus the animals killed as collateral damage during farming, refining, and shipping the stuff around the world – backyard honey is kinder to animals. However, I have met and corresponded with vegans who agree that this is surely true, yet continue to disparage and abstain from honey for purely dogmatic reasons.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m a vegan and I don’t personally see anything wrong with beekeeping/honey consumption. Other vegans may ridicule me for that, but that’s ok, I am not vegan for them I’m vegan for the animals.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for your comment. Produced properly, honey is the most ethical sugar we can eat. I have met several others who have said something similar to your statement: Not vegan for other people’s approval, but vegan for the animals.
Thanks for the thoughtful remarks,
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
I enjoyed reading your article, and the comments. I’ve been a vegan for 8 years and have always consumed honey. I have to admit that I never heard of Don Watson, nor did I seek out so-called experts on veganism. My decision to go vegan was for health and ethical reasons. I know a few beekeepers, one of which was a pharmacist I worked with. He had been keeping bees for over 50 years and spoke of them as though they were his children. We sold his honey in the pharmacy, mostly to people seeking to a natural remedy for their seasonal allergies. On rare occasions he would have propolis, the highest quality I have yet to find, and it was an amazing addition to my natural healing arsenal. I have been called a “bee-gan” by some hardcore vegans yet I always stand by my support for beekeeping and the health benefits of honey. I understand why some people are put off by “vegan lunacy “, as stated by one commenter, but please don’t assume all vegans are militant thugs intent on taking away your right to eat whatever you want. Most of us made a very personal, educated decision to follow a vegan path. I will always read scientific studies and articles like this one because I care more about facts than opinions. I’m always open to discussions about veganism and will listen to any opposition, but I will never tell people what they should eat or wear.
I’ve read plenty of articles condemning vegans where the tone is hostile and full of misinformation, speaking about vegans as though we want to take away their right to eat steak, but this article different…I appreciated the satire and the fact that you are an intelligent person who has clearly done his research. I like how you welcomed clarification and additional information from some commenters, and your handling of hostil trolls. I wish we could all approach each other’s differences in such a way. Thank you!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Shelley.
I like the expression “bee-gan” as a vegan who occasionally uses bee products. I’ll remember that word for future discussions. I guess that I was a bee-gan for about a year when I was on my vegetarian diet. I should get back to it someday, for health and ethical reasons.
I certainly don’t mean any malice toward people who choose not to consume animal products. Honey is an animal product, but it can be one of the few foods with the lowest environmental impact and the least harm to animals, if beekeeping is done ethically.
You mentioned propolis. I don’t think that humans should consume royal jelly (You have to kill immature, developing queens to harvest royal jelly – and I don’t seriously believe it does people any good at all to eat it.), but propolis is highly beneficial. Bees use it as an in-hive anti-septic and they produce it in excess, so taking a little is OK. I’ve seen propolis help a number of people with eczema and open sores. These are anecdotal examples, not medical advice, but I can see why a pharmacist might sell it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This article is really frustrating to read.
You’re painting all vegans with a pretty broad brush.
Honey has always been a hotly contested subject in vegan culture where some consume it and some don’t. Anyone saying eating coconut sugar or molasas is a better option is insane. Best option for a healthy (and vegan) sweetener is definitely dates.
The phrase vegan is thrown around way too much by people who don’t know what they’re talking about but want to jump on a movement. Especially in the last 5 years. Vegans don’t want to consume sentient beings or consume foods/use products that come from animals to avoid any potential for abuse or taking advantage of an animal. Sounds like a noble cause no? Given this definition, yeah probably most vegans would steer clear of honey because it’s coming from an animal. But how do you define sentience or consciousness and where do insects lie? This is a personal decision for most vegans and the reason there is so much debate around honey.
Anyone going around recklessly destroying plant life for no reason is a shitty human being regardless of whether they’re vegan or not. Plants very much are alive. Trying to minimize pain and suffering of other life (all life!) should be the prime motivation when deciding what to consume. While we can argue whether plants are sentient or conscious they are arguably less so than animals. As we do need to eat something, the lesser of two evils is a good way of putting it as was another commenters phrase.
Regardless of where your ethics and morals lie you should always do homework on the farms before supporting or consuming any of their products.
Even when i was just vegetarian I did research on each farm I bought cheese or honey or eggs from them. You could easily have the same argument about eggs and small family farmers who keep their hens free from cages. My sister for instance has 9 hens and gives their eggs away to friends and family.
For the record I’m strictly plant based for the last 15 years. This can include honey if I research the product first to ensure it’s ethically sourced.
And any vegan getting in a huff about you consuming honey should take a good look at their avocado and almond consumption and do a little research into how that got to their plate.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. I don’t mean to ‘paint all vegans’ the same shade of green. But I was taught that the title vegan is correctly reserved for strict followers of Don Watson. Anyone who does not adhere to Watson’s group’s doctrine isn’t vegan, but vegetarian. Some may disagree with that official interpretation from the Vegans. My post concerns the Watsonian vegans. Good luck with your own pursuit of vegetarianism – it sounds like you have researched things well and you are making healthy, ethical choices.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am a Vegan but eat honey. I was informed by manager whose dad has phd in honey bees studies. He said all the wild bees are either extinct or will be soon. Therefore, the only way to keep them alive is by buying honey which in turn flourish the honey bee farming. Since then I am eating honey.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If your pHD source is referring to wild Apis mellifera, (you do not specify which “wild bees” you mean—there are hundreds of species of bees) then your source is wrong. I keep wild (feral sourced) Apis mellifera, and assert there are thousands of wild colonies of honey bees in the Los Angeles basin. They are far from going extinct. Also, there is no connection between “honey bee farming” and the prosperity of wild honey bees.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beekeeping for honey extraction, is unethical because of stealing the surplus. Because of exploitation. Using weaker ones for the stronger ones’ goals. The same reason that make eating animals unethical, the same reason that make capitay unethical.
There is no Vegan God or bible. Vegans are diverse. Some have BS arguments, some have sound arguments. If you take the BS ones and generalize it to all, they either you are an ignorant or an ammoral person.
Plants are respected as animals are. But we need to need to survive. Eating animals would harm plants more than being vegan. much more plants
are consumed by a cow too produce a burger to feed someone, than the case of feeding that person a vegan diet. This is regardless of land-use, water footprint, carbon footprint and deforestation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Shahin Ashkiani!
Thanks for writing. I always enjoy receiving notes such as yours!
As you know, beekeepers provide warm, dry, safe homes for bees. In exchange, beekeepers receive some honey. If they didn’t take the honey, the hive would become too crowded, the queen would have to stop laying eggs, and ultimately, the bees would swarm and land somewhere unsafe. According to Tom Seeley, and others, the mortality rate for swarms on their own is 50%. However, colonies of bees provided with homes by helpful, kind-hearted self-sacrificing beekeepers (who sometimes meditate on their knees in front of bee domiciles to give thanks to the little angels of honey), have mortality rates of only about 15%. Yet, you call this unethical because your dogma, and your elitist Vegan God Watson have proclaimed the eating of honey immoral.
You are mistakenly under a spell and you don’t seem to realize that beekeepers can be ethical and moral. Sure, “some beekeepers have BS arguments, some have sound arguments. If you take the BS and generalize it to all the beekeepers, then you are an ignorant or an immoral person.” Oh, wait! Sorry, that’s what you said about me. Oopsy-daisy.
With respect and just a modest heap of BS and satire,
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just my observation (not directly about beekeeping): I’ve commonly come across more “humans are naturally meat-eaters” advocates who vehemently attack “extremist vegans” than the – what appears to me an almost unicorn like – extremist-vegan.
I’m making a slight exaggeration about the unicorn like status just for emphasis/sarcasm 🙂
Whenever these attacks are made by the self-proclaimed carnivores, they somehow just claim “we all know one of those extremist-vegans, don’t we?”, although they quickly try to avoid giving real examples of such extremist vegans by saying, according to them, thankfully, no one in the group they’re addressing itself can be categorised as an extremist vegan.
Full Disclosure: I eat honey, and I know that bees are under the threat of extinction – perhaps beekeeping has a place in their survival story. I’ve been a vegetarian all my life for ethical reasons and have also come to understand the benefits on our health and environment of avoiding meat. I can also say that I’m generally in agreement with the pro-vegan-lifestyle-advocates and have been exposed to enough of their media/propaganda, for at least the last 15-20 years, to say that I can appreciate the values of the vegan lifestyle and yet, this was the first time I heard of “Donald Watson” – I’ll be honest, I didn’t get through reading the entire article here, so I don’t know if the author later clarified that he was just building a character as the antagonist of his story.
Tldr; pro-vegan-lifestyle-advocates don’t all just follow their “God[s]” with blind faith. In my opinion, to suggest that they do is nothing more than an attempt to setup a smoke-screen/strawman to distract from the principles behind the values that are being debated.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Siddharth Patil,
Thank you for writing and for eating honey. You have already exhibited two worthy qualities.
You also show another characteristic that many will find laudable. You have chosen to post your comment, even after admitting that you didn’t finish reading the whole post. This seems like a brave thing – comment and criticize without actually knowing what the author was going to say. This does not make you reprehensible or unique as such an action is an unfortunately common these days.
I am curious about your personal history – you mentioned “I’ve been a vegetarian all my life for ethical reasons”. Was it truly “all of your life” – that implies you began making ethical decisions as a newborn, likely eschewing mother’s milk on moral grounds? If so, you are a truly remarkable person.
I hope someday we may meet so that I can learn more from you. Meanwhile, I encourage you to continue eating ethical honey and advocating for the unicorns.
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Why Vegans Are Wrong | How To Start Bee Farming
The Vegan Society Isn’t Really Vegan Its a Animal Rights Society After Cross Took control and Got Rid Of The Founding Members And Changed What Vegan Meant Removing Watson And The Founders Honorary titles off tham
Read This site Vegan Society Today It Has a Full History Of What Happen And What The Vegan Society Has Become
http://vegansociety.today/
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really like this article to be honest. Anything that encourages alternative ways of thinking is always good in my book. I’ve been thinking about pursuing biology as a potential career but my only problem was being uncertain about what would I specialize in. And I think this article may have convinced me into choosing to become an entomologist in hopes of helping bees in whatever way I can, so I thank you. Now if only I could adjust to the taste of honey…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Tasting honey is optional in entomology. Best wishes with your plans!
LikeLike
What vegan says honey is bad for your health? That’s just not true. And the reason vegans eat plants is because they cause the least amount of suffering possible and they’re actually sustainable, unlike the gigantic toll animal agriculture takes on this planet. Yes many bugs are killed in farming and producing veggies and fruits and we should be actively working to decrease this, but that doesn’t somehow make it as equally as harmful as animal agriculture. It doesn’t even come close. 7 billion baby chickens are thrown into a grinder or smoked to death minutes after the born, every year. The earth’s population in baby chickens killed shortly after birth every year. And that’s just chickens. The amount of unnecessary destruction and exploitation we put on animals, just because we have an addiction to meat is one of the worst cognitive dissonances we face as a human race. Even Einstein said until we can treat animals with the respect they deserve, we will never extend that respect toward one another. It’s true that hobby bee keeping tends to be way more humane, but commercial bee keeping (where most people get their honey) is horrendous.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Paul,
Thanks so much for writing. Your opinions are appreciated. Let me answer your question:
“What vegan says honey is bad for your health?”
If you have a chance, please read the blog post that you are commenting on. You will see that I linked to a vegan’s site who says that honey is really bad for your health. Obviously, I think she’s wrong, but here’s the link to her website, which is in my post above: http://bitesizevegan.org/ethics-and-morality/is-honey-vegan-healthy-humane/
I agree with most of what you have written. Factory farms are nasty. Someday, they will be gone. That day can’t come soon enough.
Please send me the source to your Einstein information. I’d love to see it first-hand.
Regards,
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sorry, Is this supposed to be a joke? A lot of honey you buy is farmed. It’s true that honey produced from wild bees doesn’t kill them. Bees on farms have their wings cut off, are immobilised by CO2, are artificially inseminated multiple times and often killed after a year or two. Bees are key to the ecosystem instead of farming and abusing them we should be letting them pollinate. You may think you sound hilarious saying how dare vegans kill and eat plants, but it comes across as tone deaf and ignorant. Plants don’t have thoughts, feelings, or pain receptors. They barely have a central nervous system. You need to grow up
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, thanks Chloe! It’s always nice to hear from a fan.
Let me walk through your comments:
> I’m sorry,
Thanks for starting off with an apology!
> Is this supposed to be a joke?
If you can’t answer that yourself, I’m not telling you.
> A lot of honey you buy is farmed.
No, it’s not. My backyard hives make my honey. I don’t buy any.
> It’s true that honey produced from wild bees doesn’t kill them.
Wrong. It’s not true. The entire hive, with thousands of bees, is usually destroyed. Except in the Winnie the Pooh documentaries.
> Bees on farms have their wings cut off, etc., etc.
Perhaps you don’t know that bees must fly to flowers to collect pollen and honey. Cutting their wings off wouldn’t work out well for the beekeeper.
> Bees are key to the ecosystem. . .
This part of your sentence is right! Congratulations and two points to you!
> You may think you sound hilarious. . .
No, I don’t. You misread my mind. Please don’t work as a clairvoyant sideshow act.
> Plants don’t have thoughts, feelings, or pain receptors
They used to say that about insects, too.
> They [plants] barely have a central nervous system.
Yes, just barely. However, Ents and Dorothy’s apple trees seem pretty advance. So, let’s not generalize.
> You need to grow up
Why? So I can be just like you? No thanks, Chloe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is an extremely tone deaf article and it completely undermines how much suffering farmed bees or kept bees go through. Many have their wings cut off, are artificially inseminated, and are immobilised with CO2. They should be out there pollinating plants and there’s no need for honey in our lives. You may think you are funny, but you sound immature. Grow up!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, dear! She’s back.
Now that you’ve written to me twice(!), please read my post. You might want to change your tone, though I appreciate your letters. They put a big smile on my face this evening. I sometimes become dour – even depressed – thinking about the millions who died last year from lack of safe water, the virus, malnutrition, and war; and, the millions of young women around the world who can’t escape violence, lack of education, poverty, and physical abuse.
Then I get these notes from you and it’s smile time, knowing that there are people in England who can get out for their banoffee tarts and hot chocolate, then come home and write to me saying that we are cruel to bees and we don’t need honey. (Even though beekeeping has lifted thousands of women out of abject poverty, feeds their kids, and sends their daughters to school. I’ve been personally involved in working and learning from indigenous women, so I know it works.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for the interesting article. I have no opinion on this matter. I’m just curious. Is it true that some beekeepers cut off the queen’s wings so that the bees don’t swarm? If beekepers didn’t take the excess honey, would bees have enough honey in the winter and wouldn’t need sugar or corn syrup?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Janaina,
Thanks. I appreciate your kind comment and will attempt to allay your curiosity.
Beekeepers do not cut off the wings (plural) of a queen, but a minority (perhaps 10%) clip a piece of either the left or right tip, which is as painful as trimming a fingernail (there are no nerves in the wing). This will keep the bees from swarming for a few days, until a replacement queen is produced by the bees, at which time they will swarm. Most beekeepers do not bother with clipping.
Beekeepers can take excess honey (beyond what the colony needs for winter) from a hive, leaving the rest for the bees. Some beekeepers take too much and have to feed the bees to make up for what the beekeeper should have left. Here in western Canada, a honey bee colony normally produces over 300 pounds of honey each year. Beekeepers, according to government statistics, harvest an average of 140 pounds. This leaves about 160 pounds for the bees to consume through the year, of which half (80 pounds) is left for winter food. If the bees have had a bad year (too much rain, untimely frosts, drought, wind, unusually long winter), beekeepers feed the bees to keep them alive.
Ron
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Bye ’21: Don’t let the door hit you. . . | Bad Beekeeping Blog
Extremely interesting information (and love your writing style!)
I’ve been reading reports from sources like the UN and WEF which underscore that the chronically undernourished don’t have the luxury of choosing an ‘ethical high ground’. Meat sources, when available, provide essential nutrients, particularly important in the development of children. According to the Ceres2030 report, livestock plays an important role in eliminating world wide hunger and malnutrition.
Vegan, vegetarian, omnivore – we should all have the right to choose what works best for our bodies and for our community.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you. I agree that we should have the right to eat what works best for ourselves and our community. That was well stated. I’m not sure that livestock play an important role in eliminating world-wide hunger and malnutrition, considering the conversion inefficiency of feeding food to animals and then eating the animals. But we are certainly on the same side – we should do what we can to eliminate hunger. Today, most hunger is not due to a lack of food, but a horrible result of using starvation as a weapon of war or oppression.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The livestock idea I was reading about seems to be a return to the system of our farming forefathers. (In some ways, not unlike bees and honey.) It is a plan for a sustainable livestock solution where the value chain is more than just as a food source. (I’ve read that some parts of India is using cow dung and urine to replace chemical fertilizer, for example. You’ve likely come across manure spreading in Alberta too.) While these aren’t large scale solutions, many people and places will hopefully benefit from small scale solutions!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks. We can learn a lot by looking back at how our forefathers did things. Much has been lost. Thanks for your comments!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Humans may have a right to eat ‘what’ they want, within reason, but not ‘who’ they want; & in that is the problem. Your self-centered human supremacist world view denies animals their rights not to be slaughtered & eaten. Ron claims that honey can be made without harming bees. I’d disagree with that. What’s more clear is that it cannot be taken without using, abusing or exploiting bees to one degree or another which is the vegan position.
LikeLike
Honey can be made without hurting bees is a fact, not a claim. Unfortunately, bees are often hurt. But they don’t need to be.
What will you eat instead? What food causes less injury to insects? If you don’t know how food is produced, and the environmental harm and loss of insect life that comes from making vegan veggies and grains, you have not looked into this very deeply. Collecting honey results in less harm than other forms of food production.
Please tell us all where your own food comes from so we can learn from you.
LikeLike
Thank you for this wonderfully balanced post. I used to keep bees (a couple of hives) in my garden years ago (before having children got in the way). I’ve just had to comment on a vegan honey post on a vegetarian Facebook group (I’m now waiting for the consequences of my intervention) so it was lovely to read this as validation. While I was keeping bees I remember picking up a “Vegan Society” leaflet from the library (I’m vegetarian) and being shocked at the accusations being leveled at beekeepers. This must have been 25 years ago – and nothing seems to have changed. Thank you again.
LikeLiked by 1 person