The Problem With Honey

Personally although I eat a pretty much vegan diet I still eat honey and I saw no real problem with that until recently.

The definition of veganism from The Vegan Society is “a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.”

In addition to that they say “one thing all vegans have in common is a plant-based diet avoiding all animal foods such as meat (including fish, shellfish and insects), dairy, eggs and honey – as well as avoiding animal-derived materials, products tested on animals and places that use animals for entertainment.”

As far as I was concerned, honey was a byproduct that would go to waste if it wasn’t collected and eaten, but things are rarely as simple as that.

Why Honey isn’t Vegan

It takes one bee a lifetime to produce just one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey. Seeing as there is a massive decline in bees worldwide this is a surprisingly small amount considering how many pots of honey you can still find in a supermarket.

Bees need honey more than you

Without honey, bees would starve and in addition to that honey is a source of essential nutrients for bees during winter or in crappy weather.

The Honey Industry

Apart from honey being made by bees for bees, there are certain practises within the honey industry that are pretty awful and not something I was previously aware of.

Not all honey producers will follow the practises outlined below but many do. The primary objective of most industries is to make money, and as much money as possible. This means that animal welfare, or bee welfare in this example, is rarely top of the agenda.

Honey is replaced with a sugar substitute when it’s removed from the hive. This sugar substitute is not good for bees’ health as it lacks the essential nutrients that honey contains.
Selective breeding of honey bees narrows the gene pool and increases the possibility of disease and large-scale die-offs.
Diseases are also caused by importing different species of bees for use in hives. (These diseases are then spread to the thousands of other pollinators).
To prevent Queen bees from leaving the hive to start a colony somewhere else, they often have their wings clipped by beekeepers.
When the queen is moved to a new colony by a beekeeper, she is carried with “bodyguard” bees, which, if they survive transport, will be killed by the bees in the new colony.
Farmed bees are causing a decline in native bee populations and of other competing insects who forage for nectar.
95% of the honey consumed in the UK is imported (mainly from China and Turkey) which increases the carbon footprint.

Honey Alternatives

Agave Syrup, date syrup, molasses, maple syrup, butterscotch syrup and golden syrup. All of these can be used to replace honey in cooking and baking.

Beeswax

Products which contain beeswax are also not suitable for those living a vegan lifestyle. The wax is a byproduct when harvesting honey and can be found in numerous products such as candles, lip balms, crayons, dental floss etc. Bearing in mind what a Queen bee has to go through, this might have put you off buying beeswax as well as honey. Beeswax wraps are a great alternative to cling film, but soy wax wraps are probably better as they don’t involve the exploitation of bees.

Many people will say that buying honey and beeswax products helps to conserve bee populations, but this is the same as saying that hunting lions helps to save lions. The unethical practises by the major honey producers means that they are causing the decline in other nectar-foraging insects, including other bees. These other pollinators are vitally important to our food chain as there are only seven recognised species of honey bee, and they only pollinate specific crops. There are thousands of species of bees that pollinate the many other different plants.

Here’s an example of where beekeeping is not about the honey.

These honeybees have a new home on our Devon farm. The hives are looked after by Joe Harper, a hobby beekeeper. For him it’s not about the honey, it’s about providing an example of beekeeping which is sustainable & as close to nature as possible. pic.twitter.com/c27NeCzFFL
— Riverford (@Riverford) September 25, 2019