The Honey Bee is the only creature that ‘creates food’ for humans. All other forms of food are from the organism/creature or the creature itself.
Honey has been given a great rank in Islam and amazing anti-bacterial properties and health/medicinal properties.
Having said this, the Vegans don’t eat honey, because they argue that bees work really hard and 1 bee produces only a teaspoon of honey and that they are dying off.
I have not had full debates with them on this, but I can see many holes in their arguments. Can you bring up all of their arguments and we can discuss them here and see critically whether the Vegans have a point or not?
My primary argument is that honey is produced by them and hence is different from all other foods that the Vegans don’t eat. I feel honey is the exception to their rule and I want to demonstrate this. A discussion here will help on this front.
the argument may have been valid if there was any evidence that their dying off (CCD) has anything to do with the fact that honey is harvested. the fact that honey bees are dying is most critical to the honey producers. honey necessary for the bees to live is not taken, and only surplus honey is harvested. see here (look for honey supers).
because crops cover so much land now bees dont have a natural habitat. for that reason the ‘haven’ for them are actually beekeepers. infact one of the things that people concerned about honey bees encourage is beekeeping.
Very good ... much appreciated ... so it is clear that the basis for not eating honey is mute. In fact can it be argued that by eating honey it creates a demand for more flowers to be grown and bees to be farmed and hence their numbers are encouraged by eating honey?
Surely vegans aught to protest against roads being built killing the bees and they should encourage flowers to be grown also.
“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,” writes Jo Stepaniak. Well, as detailed by PETA, “Like other factory-farmed animals, honeybees are victims of unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation … Profiting from honey requires the manipulation and exploitation of the insects’ desire to live and protect their hive.” To which, Stepaniak adds: “Even the most careful keeper cannot help but squash or otherwise kill many of the bees in the process. During unproductive months, some beekeepers may starve their bees to death or burn the hive to avoid complex maintenance.”
The vegans claim to be helping the bees live ‘naturally’, do they have a point here or are they missing an essential factor?
i dont see how they’re helping the bees live naturally. commercial/amateur beekeeping is not at the expense of natural bee habitats its in addition to them. even if some bees die in the process those are bees that wouldnt exist otherwise. and in general it is in the best interests of beekeepers that their bees survive the winter so they dont have to keep restarting their colonies. bear in mind that its the farmers that help the bees survive in months where food production is hard to come by. you have to really nurture your colony to keep it healthy.
they cant help the bees live naturally, not unless they’re going around destroying farmlands. ironically it is the demand for foods that form the vegan diet that on of the main reasons why bees have a diminished natural habitat. look up habitat loss and the impact of agriculture on bees. all honey production does is substitute the lost habitat of honey bees with a new one. the best thing vegans can do to protect the bee is not to boycott honey, but boycott vegetables.
beekeeping and honey production, especially amateur beekeeping, is regarded as one of the solutions to the problem of the disappearing honey bee. and therefore the demand for honey is very good.
you might also be interested in this, in a pakistani context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1XCHq52flI . here again you have people keeping bees in an area where there was no culture of keeping bees directly as a result of the demand for honey.. where people previously would probably destroy any hives they found.
Peace bro ... this is amazing stuff ... you've even made me think that the vegans are so concerned about stressing out the animals they forget about the stress they cause humans. I have often wondered that crop based farmland is not the most efficient use of land anyway.
It seems the vegans have no qualms in affecting animals indirectly. They would sooner favour the natural decline of bees over the unnatural maintenance.
