Reasons that I, as a vegan, do not use honey:
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I cannot guarantee that the bees consented to their product being harvested. Some beekeepers clip the queen’s wings, which can prevent the colony from leaving.
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I cannot guarantee that bees were not harmed in the process of harvesting (potentially getting crushed by the honeycomb frames, for example) or in the process of controlling the colony (like clipping the queen’s wings).
Regarding your second point, you also cannot guarantee that small animals like rodents are not harmed in the process of harvesting plants.
But renouncing honey is very easy, while not eating plants would mean starving to death. Since veganism is about reducing harm as far as possible, unavoidable suffering doesn’t make anything non vegan.
(Strawman)
Killing a few bees when collecting honey
Vs
Killing a lot of insects and rodents when plowing/tilling land to grow sugarcane/corn(sirup).
Why discount one but not the other if they are equal?
Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.
If the colony would want to move away they would just do that. I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing.
But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey.
Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey. If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.
Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.
Not trying to convince anyone to consume honey if they don’t want to. As it’s basically just sugar so whatever.
Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.
This doesn’t make the mutilation of the queen bee any less bad. It’s still harming the bee. I am not aware if a bee has the ability to make an informed decision on whether to kill the queen and relocate, so I cannot make an informed decision about whether the bees actually want to be in their current hive.
If the colony would want to move away they would just do that.
I don’t know if this is true. It’s possible the bees are being manipulated into staying at their current hive in some way.
I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing
It would hurt the queen, which is more than I want to be involved in.
But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey
Making an assumption about what the bees want is not strong enough of an excuse for me to be ok with their exploitation. I don’t believe we should have the right to make decisions for other organisms, and the bees are not able to tell us how they want to be treated, so we should not try to control them or take what they produce.
Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey.
This appears to also be an assumption. I do not know if it is true, so I cannot use it to make a decision
If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.
If this is true, there is likely to be a minimum amount of mistreatment before they take action. I do not know how much mistreatment a bee can take, so I cannot use this to make a decision.
Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.
I do not know if this is true. We take advantage of many animals without giving them much in return, so I am not sure if the bee-beeker relationship is actually symbiotic.
Now I’m just curious.
How do you manage the amount of animals that are hurt during agricultural process then?
Tons of invertebrates are killed by pesticides, while harvest or during the cleaning process of the vegetables.
It seems to me that being killed by pesticides or drown with water is worse fate that beeing in a nice artificial honeycomb where they may or may not clip the wings of one queen or make you a little sleepy once in a while with smoke.
On matter of animals hurted/killed during production process honey seems more vegan that most vegetables.
Do you personally grow everything you eat? If not, animals (and humans) are absolutely harmed in the process. Commercial agriculture, even organic, kills huge numbers of small animals and destroys habitat just to prepare the soil, not to mention all the insects killed by pesticides. Farmers will also kill deer, wild pigs, birds, etc. to protect their crops. And agriculture in some places still relies on child and/or slave labor.
You are correct. There is more that i can and need to do. That still does not make it good to use honey.
Hey no wait you’re supposed to throw your hands in the air and just eat industrially farmed animal corpses because there are also negative outcomes of vegetable production so obviously the two are completely equivalent
Do you avoid all sugar products, or just honey?
Sugar growing also kills animals. You cannot avoid all harm, so why discount honey for the harm you know, but not discounting harm from growing sugar?
Reducing harm, sure, but it seems selective to discount honey for small amount of harm, when other things you (assumed) eat do equal (potentially unknown to you) harm.
Do you need to know every process of growing/transporting something to eat it? Or does you list of edible products shrink as you learn every new form of harm?
