Of all the animal products that vegans don't consume, honey is the one that seems the most confusing.
So why is it that vegans don't consume honey?
From an ethical perspective, bees have a brain and nervous system
and have been shown to demonstrate emotions and even exhibit pessimism,
which is a significant sign of intelligence.
In the commercial honey industry, however,
there are several unethical practices that are carried out on bees,
including instrumental insemination, where typically between 8 to 12 drones
are crushed to death and have their semen extracted from them.
The queen bee is then restrained and has the semen injected inside of her.
The queen bee will often either have one or both of her wings clipped,
which is done as a means of identifying the queen bee,
but also to prevent swarming, which is where a single bee colony will split into two or more distinct colonies.
This is seen as bad for business as it reduces the honey production from that hive.
It is normal for queen bees to be purchased online as well
and you can buy them with their wings clipped and have them posted to your house.
Furthermore, when the hives have been harvested for the honey,
they are often culled for the winter as it is cheaper to kill off the entire hive
than it is to make sure they have food during the winter months.
Bee farmers will often cull hives who aren't displaying the right temperament as well.
There are a number of ways that beekeepers will cull bee colonies,
which include sealing off the hive and then pouring petrol into it
or drowning them with soapy water or gassing them to death with carbon dioxide.
Alternatively, some beekeepers will trap the bees in large industrial bin bags
which are then left in the sun to ensure the bees either suffocate to death
or die due to the increasingly high temperatures in the bag.
Sometimes beekeepers won't cull the entire hive but will instead depopulate a certain number of bees
or kill the queen. "I'm gonna kill her right now"
And even when hives are not culled, it is not uncommon for bee farmers
to lose a significant percentage of their hives
due to factors such as poor insulation, not enough food, or parasites.
Honey is a bee's food.
It is produced when they swallow nectar, regurgitate it, and then repeat this process many times.
It takes about 12 worker bees an entire lifetime to create a single teaspoon of honey.
However, because we take the honey, if the bees are not culled,
they will be given a sugar syrup which is devoid of many of the essential aspects of the honey
that the bees require to be healthy.
Couple this with the fact that honey bees are selectively bred,
meaning that the population gene pool is narrowed
and they are consequently at a significantly higher risk of diseases
and large-scale die-offs.
Furthermore honeybee hives are regularly traded locally and internationally,
often shipped in packaging boxes which allows the rapid spread of diseases and parasites
such as deformed wing virus and varroa mites.
"This eventually destroys a hive because it weakens the immune system of the bees
and it makes them more vulnerable to stress and disease."
These pathogens can affect wild bumblebee populations and spread between wild bee species
when the honeybees visit the same flower.
But don't we need to eat honey? Because bee populations are in decline
It's no secret that bee populations are in decline across the world.
But in the past 50 years the honeybee population has increased by 45 percent
So is the honey industry actually helping?
The UK, as an example, is home to around 270 bee species.
Honey bees, being but one of these species, can actively harm
wild bee populations because they compete directly for nectar and pollen,
meaning that wild bees can be out-competed.
Initiatives such as urban beekeeping put more pressure on wild bees and worsen the decline.
It is important for natural ecosystems that there are a variety of pollinators
as different pollinators will pollinate different plants.
Honeybees are extremely efficient at collecting pollen and returning it to their hives.
But as a consequence, they transfer little to the flowers that they visit.
They are measurably less effective at pollination
than wild bees. And when honey bees occur in high numbers,
they can push wild bees out of an area, making it harder for wild plants to reproduce.
This is a huge problem because a lack of wildflowers is one of the main factors
behind the decline in wild bee populations.
And on top of that, the industry most responsible for habitat destruction,
including wildlands and wildflowers is the animal farming industry.
Experts at the Department of Zoology at Cambridge University have previously stated
that the crisis in global pollinator decline has been associated with one species above all:
The western honeybee.
Honeybees are artificially bred agricultural animals similar to livestock such as pigs and cows.
But this livestock animal can roam beyond any enclosure to disrupt local ecosystems
through competition and disease.
The honeybee does not help wildlife.
Western honeybees are a commercially managed species
that can actually have negative effects on their immediate environment
through the massive numbers in which they are introduced.
Ultimately, the production of honey has serious ethical concerns
and from an environmental perspective is contributing to the very problem
that many of us think we are helping by purchasing honey in the first place.
If we really want to protect wild bees, we should focus on creating wildflower meadows
and using our outdoor spaces more effectively
in order to maximize the pollinator potential of the natural world.
The best way we can do this is by adopting a vegan lifestyle
and repurposing land that is currently used for animal agriculture
as the most comprehensive study that's ever been conducted on farming's impact on the environment
concluded that we could free up to 75% of current agricultural land
by switching to a plant-based diet, which would allow us to re-wild
and create vibrant carbon sinks full of wildflowers and rich biodiversity.
Now that's a lot of land and potential for wild bees and pollinators.