What about honey?
Is it wrong to take honey from bees?
The subject of honey sometimes divides those trying to avoid animal harm and exploitation, but really there should be no issue at all. I avoid honey for the same reasons I avoid eggs, dairy or meat, wool, fur or leather - because animals are exploited to obtain them. It shouldn't be any different just because bees are small or are further 'removed' from us. It's a simple case of moral consistency. Bees don't make their honey for us, they make it to store in their hives as a food source in times of need. Yet we take it gladly, without permission, filling their hives with smoke, crushing many of them to death, and replacing their food source with a nutritionally deficient sugar water.
As with all animal exploitation, just because we have the ability to manipulate their environment or control their breeding doesn't somehow make what we're doing ethical, and as with eggs, dairy and meat we have no biological need to consume honey. There are plenty of tasty sweeteners out there that don't exploit animals, with agave nectar, maple syrup, and even the plant-based Bee Free Honee all readily available if we take the time to look.
Studies have also found that bees (and other invertebrates) do show some level of intelligence and also present
something akin to feelings. There's still an awful lot we don't understand about invertebrate behaviour but I do wonder what difference that would make anyway. After all, we know without doubt that cows, chickens and pigs can think, feel and suffer and yet we mutilate and slaughter them in their billions.
Another claim sometimes made is that we need honey production and beekeeping to help pollinate our crops,
yet it is non-honey bees that are sometimes used commercially to do this - and that doesn't suddenly justify the added exploitation of taking other bees' honey on top. We need the plant crops they pollinate to survive, but we certainly don't need honey. The bees used in commercial pollination are not those used in honey production, and the (non-native) honey bee actually competes with others who are vital for the pollination of our crops.
As with all animal products, the bottom line is that there are so many great alternatives out there and we're incredibly fortunate to have such an abundance of choice. So why choose products that harm, exploit or kill when we can simply choose others that don't.
As with all animal exploitation, just because we have the ability to manipulate their environment or control their breeding doesn't somehow make what we're doing ethical, and as with eggs, dairy and meat we have no biological need to consume honey. There are plenty of tasty sweeteners out there that don't exploit animals, with agave nectar, maple syrup, and even the plant-based Bee Free Honee all readily available if we take the time to look.
Studies have also found that bees (and other invertebrates) do show some level of intelligence and also present
something akin to feelings. There's still an awful lot we don't understand about invertebrate behaviour but I do wonder what difference that would make anyway. After all, we know without doubt that cows, chickens and pigs can think, feel and suffer and yet we mutilate and slaughter them in their billions.
Another claim sometimes made is that we need honey production and beekeeping to help pollinate our crops,
yet it is non-honey bees that are sometimes used commercially to do this - and that doesn't suddenly justify the added exploitation of taking other bees' honey on top. We need the plant crops they pollinate to survive, but we certainly don't need honey. The bees used in commercial pollination are not those used in honey production, and the (non-native) honey bee actually competes with others who are vital for the pollination of our crops.
As with all animal products, the bottom line is that there are so many great alternatives out there and we're incredibly fortunate to have such an abundance of choice. So why choose products that harm, exploit or kill when we can simply choose others that don't.
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Further reading on bees:
- Bees show a wide range of intelligence
- The ecology of the honey bee
- Urban bee-keeping a threat to bees
- Ten ways to help bees in your garden
- Bees show a wide range of intelligence
- The ecology of the honey bee
- Urban bee-keeping a threat to bees
- Ten ways to help bees in your garden
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Bee and honey videos:
Is honey vegan?
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The honey industry explained
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Bee intelligence
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Woman forms bond with bee
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"Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them."
Dalai Lama
And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them."
Dalai Lama