Is Honey Vegan?

“Now this is just silly! Bees are just insects! And they naturally produce more honey than they need, right?”

Do bees really feel anything? They make honey anyway, what’s the problem with skimming a little off the top?

The Excess Honey Trap

Bees do make excess honey, so there’s no problem taking their excess, right? Though, the main reason they make excess honey is because nature is unpredictable and they need a stash to survive in emergencies like the winter months or other harsh conditions.

The general consensus in the beekeeping world is to give them a solution of sugar water in these situations. Sometimes beekeepers haven’t even harvested any honey, but the bees didn’t make enough and they use the sugar water to save the colony from starvation. Most of the time, however, it’s because the excess has been harvested by us and we give sugar water as a replacement. Fair trade, right?

Unfortunately, it is known that sugar water is not a perfect substitute for honey. “Sugar offers no nutrients to bees or humans, and a lack of protein can even lead to bees eating their own eggs to keep themselves going.”

So while sugar water is helpful in preventing immediate starvation, it does not fully replace the nutritional benefits of honey, which is needed for immune function, energy, and the overall health of the bee colony.

In Un-bee-lievable Pain

Do bees feel pain? Unlike bivalves, which lack a brain, bees possess a central brain and show complex problem-solving capabilities. They understand the concept of zero?!? What does that even mean.

One study showed some evidence of bee intelligence but does not “provide ‘formal proof’” of their ability to feel what we call pain.

This brings up the point of the precautionary principle. This suggests we we should give bees the benefit of the doubt until we know otherwise.

Save the Bees!

“But eating honey supports beekeepers, and we need to save the bees!”

When talking about saving the bees, we’re not talking about commercial honeybees—we’re talking about wild native bees!

Wild bees are in serious decline due to pesticide usage, territory loss from honeybee competition, pathogens spread from commercial honeybees (due to their lackluster nutrition and overcrowding), and habitat loss [1] [2].

Honeybee, I’m home!

So are honeybees useless then? This is where it’s not clear-cut. Commercial honeybees do provide pollination services for many crops (in the UK at least, and the US from what I could find). In fact, in the UK, honeybees are capable of supplying about 34% of pollination needs, with wild pollinators covering the rest. We need a diverse array of wild pollinators to maintain healthy ecosystems.

Honeybees alone are not sufficient to pollinate our crops, and if we were to rely solely on them, an estimated 1 million additional colonies would be required.

Bee the Change

Our priority should be saving the wild native bees and not honeybees. Honeybees may be necessary for some commercial pollination, but “beekeeping is an agrarian activity that should not be confused with wildlife conservation.”

So buying honey does not ‘save the bees’! And honey isn’t crucial for any sort of survival. If we didn’t buy honey, there would still be commercial beekeeping for some more demanding crop pollination needs (at least until we reduce our meat intake to the point where we can reclaim some of our agricultural land for wild habitats, allowing wild pollinators to thrive).

Personally, honey isn’t a big deal to me. It doesn’t really matter if bees feel pain like us or not, because leaving honey alone costs nothing. I’m just going to continue using agave syrup and leave them bee.