Some More Products of Animal Slavery (Vol. 1)

First of all let me start by reviewing the basics. In 1944, Donald Watson created the term "vegan" and gave it the following definition:

Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverence for life. It applies to the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives, and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or in part from animals.

Bearing this in mind, I’d like to go through all the products that, as soon as I mention my not consuming them, make even the most vegan-tolerant people mostly go "Huuuh? But whyyyyy!?" and roll their eyes behind my back…

 

HONEY

It is not a question of whether bees are intelligent or not. They are obviously amazing creatures in many different ways: able to communicate on several different levels (odor, sound, movement, etc.), they have an incredible skill of orientation, covering over 100 km² per colony and always finding the straightest way back to the hive; they are the hardest workers and their society is extremely well organized. (Watch this for example).

It is not a question of whether they can or can not feel pain. Although I’d like to remind you that bees, as all living creatures, have a complex nervous system as well as the ability to move in order to avoid harm (which you must have noticed if you have ever come across one of them and tried to slap them away). It is not only an evidence of common sense and logic but has also been researched in scientific studies.

 

The real ethical problem is in the simple fact that humans have enslaved bees, using them uniquely for our own benefit. Now, there are many misleading general perceptions on the way beekeeping is organized. Firstly – most honey is not produced at sweet little flowery farms, but in huge industrialized factory farms. Secondly – people do kill bees and not only by getting stung. In fact, beekeepers kill their queens and replace them by new ones coming from commercial suppliers every one or two years in order to maintain control over the hive and to keep honey production at maximum. Even worse – some bee farmers kill off their hives before every winter because it is more profitable for their income.

Contrarily to what we might expect, bees are not domesticated and if given the opportunity they could abscond (the entire colony leaves) or swarm (they raise a new queen and divide the hive in half to leave and form a new colony somewhere else). But bees cannot leave even if they wanted to because beekeepers control their queens and capture the swarming colonies to bring them back. Even during fall and winter a mouse guard is placed in front of the hive entrance.

”Beekeepers are continuing an ancient tradition," one might say in their defense. Think again: the hives used in bee farming today were invented only 150 years ago and are specially designed for large-scale honey extraction. These methods are therefore radically different from those created thousands of years ago and have nothing in common with beekeeping methods that emphasize humility, respect and being part of nature as opposed to managing nature for human gain as our capitalist order dictates.

"They only take the excess honey that bees produce," some claim. Actually, all beekeepers take nearly every last bit of spring-season honey. And according to James E. Tew, an Extension Specialist in Apiculture: "Commercial beekeepers frequently extract [read: steal] all fall-season honey and then feed colonies either sugar syrup or corn syrup in quantities great enough to provide all the winter food the bees would need." But anyone in their right mind can guess that honey is not just some random sweet sticky stuff that bees like to eat – it is their natural food that contains just the right amount of fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals that their bodies need to function and that they will not get from plain sugar water. Just like infants need their mother's milk and not the milk produced by a mom of another species... 

Bees are also used for other byproducts such as beeswax for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, polishes, and candles; royal jelly (that some people believe has youth-preserving qualities) and venom, sought for medicinal purposes. All this does not mean that vegans are left without any thick sweet and sticky yummy stuff to spread over our vegan pancakes or to add into our vegan cookies. There are numerous plant-based honey alternatives out there including Agave nectar, Maple syrup, Barley Malt syrup and many more. You can find plenty of information on honey alternatives and vegan honey recipes here.

And if you are sick and tired of all these "vegangelical" and hard to digest facts about bees, I encourage you to go and see the "Bee Movie" which is light and funny and sweetly sincere regarding many points of the bee-being.