Regarding Bees & Honey
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In a recent discussion about who is and who isn’t vegan, the age-old honey subject came up.
Honey is NOT vegan.
Here are four reasons that vegans should not consume honey.
This is not an exhaustive list; Please comment with your own reasons below on why honey is not vegan:
- Honey comes from bees. Bees are animals. Thus honey is an animal product. Moreover, honey is an unnecessary and easily avoidable product.
- The authoritative definition of vegan, from the Vegan Society, excludes the consumption of honey: “A vegan is someone who tries to live without exploiting animals, for the benefit of animals, people and the planet. Vegans eat a plant-based diet, with nothing coming from animals – no meat, milk, eggs or honey, for example. A vegan lifestyle also avoids leather, wool, silk and other animal products for clothing or any other purpose.” (source)
- Bees’ number-one-threat is pesticides. Thus, the best way to help bees is to buy organic and boycott pesticides. Buying honey doesn’t actually help any bees. If you truly care about bees and want to help them, an excellent way to help bees is to build and protect bee habitats. Go plant some flowers!
- Not only do bees have complex nervous systems (much more complex than that of an oyster) but because bees are animals and not plants, the mere chance that they feel pain is worth consideration. Since it’s so easy to avoid honey and since it’s likely the poduct of a creature that feels pain and if you’re concerned about preventing unecessary suffering then avoiding honey makes sense.
That said, honey is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you currently eat animal flesh, STOP NOW!
Worry about honey later. Because comparatively, honey-consumption is so trivial that it almost doesn’t matter.
Make a difference for mammals, birds, and fish NOW. Think about insects later.
Still want more? Please read Why Vegans Avoid Honey >>
This article was updated in November 2011.
Words have definitions. Food that contains animal products is not vegan, by definition. Honey is an animal product. Therefore, honey is not vegan. End of discussion.
However, vegan is not exactly synonymous with ethical. It’s close, but not an exact match. One could make the case that honey is more ethical than alternatives. I find it a rather weak argument, but one can make it. One cannot, however, make the argument that honey is vegan.
@simon: I think it is important not to clinge to dictionary style definitions…I just keep in mind what Steve Sapontzis wrote about this topic.
Honey or products from other animals that don’t feel and as such can’t even be considered for rights aren’t really ‘wrong’. I don’t see why insects should have rights…I would really like to hear an ethical argument concerning insects. The bees shouldn’t really matter in these discissions: the pigs, chickens an rabbits should!
I think you can call yourself an ‘ethical vegan’ and eat honey. What the dictionary says shouldn’t matter. In fact: if you apply any definition very strict…then nobody is a vegan in this world.
And how are we helping to change the world by infighting about honey? This isn’t helping anyone. I have seen so many discussions and fights about it, I can’t even count ‘em anymore.
With all due respect, oneandonly, you’re not a vegan. You are a lacto-ovo vegetarian. So… start by eliminating the dairy and eggs and then consider honey later.
In regards to insects and pain, bees do in fact feel pain. They also communicate. There is a good article about that here:
http://www.vegetus.org/honey/honey.htm
Regarding Simon’s comment that “One could make the case that honey is more ethical than alternatives.” One could argue that honey was an ethical choice, but only if they assumed “alternatives” didn’t include abstinence from all sweeteners. There is no human need for honey or any “honey alternative.” Thus, the entire pro-honey discussion is moot.
Like Simon, the arguments I’ve seen for honey are weak. None have compelled me to include honey in my diet. Besides, I prefer the “alternatives.”
I’m not a lacto – ovo…I don’t use dairy products. When it comes to bees and other insects, I’ll maybe make a post about that on my blog where I will explain my reasoning.
Sorry. So, you’re an ovo-vegetarian, is that right?
I am an ovo, but don’t eat much eggs either…and not from factory farms or its ilk…
I’ll blog about the bees tomorrow (and eggs)…I’m blogging so much right now. I hardly make youtube vids because I don’t have enough time, but then I blog it all away
I made the blogpost I promised explaining my views on this topic.
For those who are interested, you can find it on my blog:
http://empathyforanimals.blogspot.com/2009/07/do-invertebrates-feel-pain.html
To the question, “And how are we helping to change the world by infighting about honey?,” if bees in fact suffer then we are “helping to change” by correcting an injustice oneandonlyhypnosm, in keeping with vegan ends. Your argument assumes that it is not an injustice, but that’s circular.
This moves onto the question: do bees suffer? I read your post but it’s disputed by evidence to the contrary on the issue of bee sentience. So, what I can conclude is this. Both assumptions – bees suffer, bees don’t suffer – have support. Therefore, since we are concerned with suffering and given that we don’t need to eat honey, substitutes abound, why not act on the assumption that bees do suffer and not consume honey.
What reasonable argument is there to dispute this position –“benefit of the doubt”? It seems that selfishness (or pure obstinacy) would have us continue to assume differently, that bees don’t suffer and therefore I can exploit them for honey.
Aside from the bees themselves, another reason to avoid honey is environmental. Honey bees are not native to North America. Since there introduction to this continent and because of their extensive use by farmers across the country, honey bees are driving native pollinators (insects, birds, bats) out of their native habitats, and sometimes to extinction. Further, honey bees are factory farmed and their overall health is suffering for it. From certain beekeeping practices like killing the queens annually to prevent swarming, to stealing honey (food for baby bees) and replacing it with sugar water (an inadequate alternative food source for bees), to trucking bees to farms across the country, honey bee populations have been experiencing compromised immune systems, ill health and high mortality rates. Colony Collpase Disorder, which threatens to wipe out bee populations worldwide, is primarily caused by the compromising of bee immune systems due to poor beekeeping practices. We fund those bad beeking practices every time we buy honey or other bee products.
If honey bees go extinct, major human food crops will not recieve adequate pollination and will die off. Farmers around the world will be out of jobs and millions, possibly billions, of people will go hungry. It would be catastrophic. So, for the sake of everyone, choose plant-based alternatives to honey and other bee products. It not just vegan, it’s the smart thing to do. And, as EC said, plant a garden and help protect ferel bee colonies as well as native pollinators.
Before I begin, I just wish to tell you that I am vegan. No eggs, no milks, no honey. Nevertheless I don’t agree with the article. My dad is beekeeper and I used to help him sometimes.
I am going to reply to the 4 arguments.
1. Honey comes from bees. Bees are animals. Thus honey is an animal product. Bread comes from men. Men are animals. Thus bread would be an animal product. In fact, in the honey there is a little portion of bee salive. Nevertheless, it’s not comparable with milk and eggs, but rather to the dougher’s sweat, if you like.
2. The Vegan Society is relative. Before it, the Vegetarian Society included eggs and milk in the vegetarian agenda, although the word «vegetarian» has nothing in itself that would allow them. On the other side, the Vegan Society speaks about «exploiting animals». The person who wrote this article took the «exploiting animals» as an axiome. It is not.
3. Pesticides and bees are not linked. The beekeeper puts the hives in a forest, for example, and bees shall thake the nectar of the acacias. Some are put in a bio field of sunflowers etc.
4. Protect bees’ habitats? That is a part of beekeeping.
Now I shall give reasons why honey could be vegan. First of all, it’s vegetal, it comes from flowers. It’s worked by bees, but if the contract btw man and bees is fair, why not?
Beens play a capital role in agriculture, including vegan agriculture. Beens don’t live wildly anymore in our society. The best way to keep them is to do a reasonably fair contract with them. First of all, you give them shelter. Then you move them to be very close to their flowers. Moving them could help them increase their production up to five times more than if they were in your yard. Than you halp them survive throughout the winter. In this case, I think it’s fair for the man to take HIS part of the business.
Instead of banning honey as non-vegan, you should better encourage fairness to the beekeepers. (I don’t know how it works in the USA, but here in Europe we have individual beekeepers.) I don’t eat honey because the beekeepers of my neighbourhood don’t respect their bees, but they take all the honey and impoison the bees with sugar. My dad doesn’t do that, but he lives too far, and honey is not easily transportable.
As for the rest, indeed, bees suffer too, they feel scared, even nervous, they can be kind if they know the person. When they have lice in their ears, they feel pain. Bees have feelings. Unfortunately they have some bad behaviours, killing drones and old queens or young queens-to-be.
Again, I will direct vegans to http://www.vegetus.org/honey/honey.htm where the subject is thoroughly and completely examined with citations and everything!
It doesn’t help! I have explained already here why those reasons may be incorrect. And I am repeating it: EXPLOITATION of the bees is seen as a condition sine qua non of beekeeping.
It’s very visiblr that those people who speak in that manner have never been in real contact with unindustrial beekeeping.
Regarding pesticides:
http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/about/intheworks/honeybee.htm
where it says:
The USDA even lists pesticides as the first possible cause of CCD.
source: http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572
More information on the subject:
http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/05/18/bees_pesticides/
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/photostories/week_78_7_19_06/week_78.htm
I am baffled by all the pro-pesticide people I meet. I simply can’t understand how people can think that something that’s lethal to ants, aphids, cockroaches, etc. won’t be lethal or dangerous to bees, birds, fishes, cats, dogs, humans… It’s RIDICULOUS. And it makes me want to bang my head against the wall when I hear people defending pesticide use for NO GOOD REASON. We’re not talking about preventing malaria here, we’re talking about growing pretty fruits and vegetables… having bigger harvests… Argh!
George,
Your reply to the first argument doesn’t follow because bees are unwilling participants given that they are incapable of consenting to their exploitation or use. The contrary is true of men and bread. Men, in the formal sense, are moral agents, capable of consenting. Assuming that the men have consented, their use is ethically acceptable, theoretically.
George, for your argument to work, you have to assume that the “contract between man and bees is fair,” but how can you reasonably make such an assumption that wouldn’t equally apply to any other form of animal exploitation? Couldn’t those who work within the “food industry” equally make such an assumption? Temple Grandin certainly does.
However, this kind of reasoning is circular because it relies on an assumption that makes the conclusion self-evident; however, the fundamental assumption itself cannot be rationally defended.
Your statement about bees and “bad behavior” doesn’t follow because they aren’t moral agents. It is, therefore, nonsensical to label their behavior “bad,” or “good” for that matter.
George, even if their behavior were “bad” your conclusion isn’t supported because you have no way of knowing whether or not your intervention actually reduces harm; perhaps your intervention, while alleviating the “bad behavior,” causes further harm. You cannot know and therefore we ought to adopt a policy of non-intervention as much as reasonably possible.
Alex,
First of all, I don’t believe in your assumptions about moral agents and amoral agents. Each animal, at her/his level, is a moral agent.
Again your assumption that the contract between man and bees be necessarily exploitation is arbitrary. Bio honey produced by bees that work with responsable beekeepers in NOT exploitation. It’s just a contract.
As long as bees don’t migrate elsewhere, but accept to abide in a hive is an acceptance of the contract. In the meanwhile dairy and eggs production is an exploitation, because:
1. It comes FROM the animal, not wrought BY the animal;
2. Cows and chicken want their babies, which milk and egg farming stops; while bees have their own life.
3. Cows and chicken are enslaved; bees get shelter and give honey, but they are free.
4. Cows and chicken are taken their own lives as a price for man’s protection, which means they are not protected; in the meanwhile a good beekeeper protects indeed the bees and does not take their lives, babies etc.
Let’s move on with your arguments through a reductio ad absurdum. If, as you say, «we ought to adopt a policy of non-intervention», then please, stop eating fruits; they MUST be pollenized by bees; stop eating cabbage, beans and other cruciferæ and leguminosæ, stop using sunflower oil, rape oil, and all the soy products. Domestic bees are responsible for 80% of those pollinisations. By using all those vegetables, you support bees’ “exploitation” and honey industry!
Moreover, one of the fight against pesticides is bees’ presence. (In some countries in Europe, ti is forbidden to spread pesticides on a certain radius round about the bees colony.)
Now maybe you will reproach me that bees pollenize also plants which are given to the kine and swine, which will be slain. This is not exact. Barley, corn and oat are pollenized by the wind, while the Brasilian soy, imported for the cattle, is pollenized by wild insects.
In the meanwhile, the domestic bees are necessary to produce our vegan fresh fruits and vegetables. Farm animals are NOT necessary to the nature, even worse, they polluate it. Domestic bees ARE necessary for the nature, even better, they don’t polluate it.
Domestic bees are not necessary. They are currently considered necessary by some people because other pollinating insects have been killed off by bees or pesticides. But other pollinators could come back, particularly if we stopped using so many pesticides.
Moreover, honey is not simply a bee product, it’s bee food. They make honey to eat. Humans steal it, just like they steal milk from cows.
Honey is not vegan.
And it’s absurd to even argue about. Honey is an unnecessary sweetener, not a nutrient-dense health food. Get real.
Eccentric vegan,
Bees ARE necessary to the planet. For further explanation, please visit a beekeeper (not an industrial thing, but a beekeeper).
You say: «They make honey to eat.» Yes, it’s true, but when the same bees, with the same effort from their part, make 6 times more honey than if man didn’t help, then man can take his part from it.
You say: «Humans steal it, just like they steal milk from cows.» No, no, no. Milk is FROM the animal; honey is only manufactured by the animal. Cows are imprisoned for the milk; bees are free.
You say: «Honey is not vegan. And it’s absurd to even argue about.» If produced in ethical conditions, honey IS vegan, as it is a vegetal product. It’s even absurd to affirm that it isn’t, while you have not visited ethical beekeepiers and never spent some time with one. So please get informed before you just affirm “timeless truths”.
You say: «Honey is an unnecessary sweetener, not a nutrient-dense health food.» While this could be true (we don’t use honey) under some conditions, this could be untrue in other. When we have kids (we don’t have yet), if they get sick, if I have the choice btw synthesis chemicals from the pharmacy and ethical honey, doubtless shall I give them the latter. Honey is a natural alicament.
You say: «Get real.» Merely you should get real by spending some time with an ethical beekeeper. It’s very easy to spit on people, when you don’t know what it is about. I will be gland to read an article about this after your visit.
I read this article
http://www.basingstoke-beekeepers.org.uk/vegansoc.html
and I would even say that there are a lot of things said by the VS and not commented by the guy. In fact, if industrial beekeeping collects all the by-products, with the methods described, this is simply untrue for house beekeeping.
By the way, I will add one thing. My father, like other beekeepers, began beekeeping like this. He saw a new colony of bees that had swarmed from somewhere to one of my dad’s cherry tree. A couple of years ago, when some bees wished to swarm, he gave the new colony to a neighbour. Bees and men live in a good symbiosis, when beekeeping is ethical.
But of course, that is not understandable by urban vegans who cannot make the difference btw a cow and a bean, btw honey and milk. Too bad.
There are so many people who affirm they are vegan, while eating bananas and/or drinking coffee which were produced in a new slavery towards human animals, whilst someone who respects and HELPS the bees, just taking a part of their surplus, is not a vegan in your eyes. This makes so sense.
You «strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel.»
All anyone needs to know about honey and veganism:
a) The original definition of “vegan” from the people who coined the word excluded honey.
b) The current definition of “vegan” from most recognized sources excludes honey.
c) Most honey is produced in ways that even George above would find objectionable.
d) Honey is not necessary or important for human health and cannot rightly be called a healthfood.
e) None of this is so important that it’s a reason to continue eating other animal products like meat, eggs, fish, and cow’s milk. If you want to be a beegan, be a beegan.
George,
If children are moral agents then we ought to punish them if their actions violate criminal law. If you challenge this conclusion with the qualification “at his/her level” then you are simply agreeing with my conclusion without actually saying so, which makes your argument inherently contradictory – children are moral agents, but not to the level whereby we can hold them accountable for their actions, which means, that, by definition, children aren’t moral agents. I would agree George; the same follows for most nonhuman animals, including bees.
So bees tacitly consent, under a Lockean proviso, because they don’t migrate; an interesting argument. This relies on an assumption about bee-moral agency that only you seem to accept, however. This is what is curious about your argument that we can take our share of honey production.
Let’s challenge your reductio with another. I lived in Washington, D.C. where the majority of the infrastructure is the result of African slave labor. Since I oppose the exploitation of human animals in this way, it would follow that my use of the roadways through Anacostia is immoral. We exist within certain structures whereby we cannot avoid certain contradictions. The moral life is an attempt to avoid these contradictions, like you being a vegan and eating honey, as best possible. If, therefore, industrial produce production is the result of the exploitation of bees, then this may be one such contradiction.
Now, a personal or organic garden, for example, is different because one can simultaneously adopt a policy of non-intervention and consume garden vegetables. We don’t interfere in the lives of bees, as taking the honey from hives necessarily does.
I take issue with this blog post.
Honey is perfectly compatible with an intelligent definition of veganism.
Let me pose two questions: (1) is it any more morally wrong to kill a sponge than a plant? And (2) if we discovered a sentient plant, or a sentient extraterrestrial species of alien that was not an “animal” could a vegan eat it?
The answer to both questions is “no”.
The best way to rationalize veganism is that it is as a recognition that we owe a moral duty not to cause unnecessary suffering. Thus, a vegan may not eat E.T. and may eat or kill a sponge. To say otherwise would be to put form over function. After all, why defer our dietary choices to taxonomists who are more interested in organizing species into groups when we can defer to the a principle of not causing unnecessary suffering?
Thus, the inquiry is not whether a bee is an animal but whether a bee can suffer. A proposition I can find some evidence to support though none that I’ve found persuasive. So for now, I consider myself a vegan who eats honey. Thank you very much.
Chris, read the updated article here: http://www.vegansoapbox.com/why-vegans-avoid-honey/