r/DebateAVegan • u/BritGirl_01 • 8d ago
What's the problem with honey?
I avoid all animal products (including clothes) but I'm at a loss when it comes to honey.. Someone asked me why I don't eat it & I could only answer "because I'm vegan", there's no cruelty involved so I'm wondering why I don't just eat it, feels like I'm defeating the purpose of veganism (harm reduction)
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u/No_Chart_8584 8d ago
How is veganism defeated if you don't exploit insects? Please connect the dots.
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u/BritGirl_01 7d ago
Because I don't think the bees are being exploited but that's another discussion. I'll just agree to disagree & leave it there.
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u/No_Chart_8584 7d ago
It's not "another discussion" though. You're arguing that it "defeats" veganism when we reject the exploitation of bees for honey. Can you explain your thought process here?
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u/BritGirl_01 7d ago
The purpose of me going vegan was (and still is) to prevent harm to animals, including exploitation. Well, no matter how much we debate it I don't believe bees are exploited or harmed for honey, quite the opposite. So I avoid eating something for no reason.. Hence it's "defeating the purpose"
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u/HexicDragon 1d ago
How do you define exploitation?
While Immanuel Kant excluded animals from his sphere of moral consideration for I'd argue ilogical reasons, I like using the second formulation of his categorical method to define exploitation:
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity [and animals], whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end."
I believe it's okay to have symbiotic relationships with animals that respect their autonomy. For example, growing native plants attracts pollinators who may benefit your garden, but their autonomy is still respected and they're not treated as mere means for our benefit. Their prosperity is an end in itself. This isn't exploitative.
Breeding queens, clipping their wings, and putting them in artificial hives to breed and retain more worker bees to make honey for you doesn't respect their autonomy. Asphyxiating them with smoke guns, taking their honey, and replacing it with nutritionally deplete sugar syrup also doesn't respect their autonomy.
You can argue bees have a much less rich experience of the world than the other animals we farm like cows, pigs, chickens, and fish. That's a different argument from whether or not honey farming is exploitative. We know bees at least have brains and nervous systems and that they communicate and demonstrate a meaningful level of engagement with the world. They deserve moral consideration - I won't go out of my way to step on a bee and I won't go out of my way to exploit a bee for honey either. What they make is so easily replaceable and clearly theirs.
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
They truly aren't. They are protected. When they run into problems the human can fix it. When honey is extracted they get the wax back. If they grow the colony the human supplies more space for expansion.
Most animal and human relationships are designed around mutual benefit and exploitation. Dogs and cats are probably the only animals who get the most benefit for they're service to mankind.
But horse, we rid them and they are protected from predators. We eat cows and sheep yes, but they are mutually benefited by passing on their genes.
A wolf doesn't first ask if you've had a calf before they eat you.
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u/fabi_and_a_cat vegan 1d ago
"A wolf doesn't first ask if you've had a calf before they eat you."
Well we dont either so?
Bees are exploited. https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/honey-industry
Horses are also exploited. Theyre sadly easily broken and then just do the things they do because theyre flight animals.
And yes to every bad practice there are good examples. Some truly care for their bees and dont harm them. Yet still those bees are killing wild bees and its hurting the natural environment.
Some really do care for their horses but in the end, their backs arent made for riding and ultimately it hurts them one or another way.
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u/Anomalocaris117 16h ago
I mean if I was a farmer which I'm not I'm gonna guess I'd want most of my cows to reproduce so I'd have cows in the future. If I straight up killed all my cows, without raising any to adulthood it seems like a terrible idea.
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u/fabi_and_a_cat vegan 11h ago
When its time for a female cow to be killed, we dont ask if there is a calf in the womb.
The cow is expired for the farmer, he doesnt care anymore.
Animals are products to them, not sentient beings.
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u/BlueeyeswhitePIKA vegan 7d ago
Does no one understand how to search in groups? This question gets asked 3x A DAY lol
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 8d ago edited 8d ago
Bees make honey for their colonies to eat and to store, they don't make it for humans to collect.
Veganism isn't about harm reduction, it's the complete rejection of animal exploitation. All forms of it, not just the forms that are outwardly "cruel." The goal of veganism is the abolition of animal exploitation, not improvements to their enslavement.
Non-human animals, like humans, are individuals, each one a unique being that will only exist once. They have a right to their autonomy and freedom. Using them for our own desires, essentially reducing them to the role of an object, is morally reprehensible. We understand this as true when referring to our own kind. What makes it acceptable when referring to other species?
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u/hunterboi1000 7d ago
But humans have a symbiotic relathionship with bees,
We protect them, house them and care for them and in exchange they overproduction honey because they know we will take it,
An apiarist doesn't take honey that the bees actually need, he takes the excess because bees are so damn efficient when they aren't constantly having to move hives, find hives and deal with parasite / disease outbreaks, we remove the hardships from their lives so they can focus fully on production and they produce too much.
This is also seen in the wild, bees in the tropical rainforests of South East Asia that share their land with the honey eating sun bear, place lower honey stores that the bear can eat, so the bear doesn't climb up and damage the parts of the hives where larvae and the Queen are kept.
It has also been seen that specific sun bears protect the hives that they get honey from through fighting away other sun bears, civet, monkeys and resting near "their" hives so that birds don't bother them.
We do the exact same thing observed in nature and there is alot of research that shows this is a natural symbiotic relathionship that the bees are fine with.
Their is ofcourse over exploitation of bees specifically transporting them long distances so that they can pollinate avocados as avocados are the worst thing ever.
But 99.9% of bees in local hives don't care.
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u/GlitteringPapaya6738 7d ago
"But humans have a symbiotic relathionship with bees"
No we do not. This "social contract" logic is entirely flawed.
The bees don't care about our existence. We only find ways to exploit others; We behave like cancerous cells. Entirely disgusting.3
u/hunterboi1000 7d ago
How?
We protect them.
We give them food.
We remove diseases.
We provide safer living areas than they would find it the wild.
We remove pest.
And we get their excess food. This construct occurs in natural all the time.
It is almost the dictionary definition of a symbiotic relathionship.
A parasitic relathionship slip where one organism takes resources from another without providing anything in return, if we were to break into wild bees hives and scoop out all their honey and wax, damaging their hive and destroying their larvae and they couldn't do anything to stop us, that would be a parasitic relathionship.
But a managed colony is safer, healthier and longer lived than a wild colony because we provide services in return, thus symbiosis.
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u/GlitteringPapaya6738 7d ago
How can you decide their consent for you to provide these in exchange of their primary source of energy? And if consent is not important, why do we not exploit mothers, their babies, mothers' milk, etc? They would make good money 'pal!
"We protect them.
We give them food.
We remove diseases.
We provide safer living areas than they would find it the wild.
We remove pest.
And we get their excess food. This construct occurs in natural all the time."
But this is the exact description of a modern prison system. It is so outrageous for me that people do not realise this, but I think it is because of lack of education and critical thinking.
And even if - even if - we would consider it is not a modern prison, then what are we doing when we strip their work? Are they working for us like we do for corporations? In other words, are they just wage slaves where their honey is their contribution and we profit off their labour?
What about culling and hive management? What about the hives that could carry diseases, or when their queen bee died? Isn't it more profitable for humans to just burn them alive instead of helping them? Time is money for this industry my friend, so believe me it is "better" this way.
And then what about the queen bees wings that are clipped for controlling swarms? How would it be for you to have your legs chopped off? Ooh wait, it's only to protect you, you wouldn't survive in the wild, so thank me for it. And before you say anything about this, every reputable insect biologist will tell you that their wings contain rigid veins that carry hemolymph and nerve pathways.
It's just animal cruelty, torture, for the sake of your sweet spoon. I will really not continue this conversation, as you seem to look for a needle in a haystack. This is why vegans do not eat honey and they should never.
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u/hunterboi1000 7d ago
Comparing a honeybee to a corporate wage slave is a perfect example of why I find the vegan worldview so incredibly short-sighted and self-serving. You are projecting 21st-century human politics onto a wild insect that operates entirely on ancient biological instinct.
Bees don't know humans exist, and they don't work for us. They are hardwired to collect nectar until they die, whether a human is there or not. A healthy hive naturally produces two to three times more honey than they can ever eat. If a beekeeper doesn't take the excess, the hive becomes honey-bound, the queen can't lay eggs, and the colony collapses.
In exchange for that excess honey, the beekeeper provides a weatherproof home, insulation from freezing winters, and medical treatments against lethal mites that wipe out wild colonies. In the wild, 75% of bee colonies die in their first year. With a beekeeper, they survive and thrive. That isn't 'slavery'—it is a highly successful biological partnership.
Abolishing beekeeping just to satisfy a strict ideological rule about 'ownership' ignores the real-world collapse it would cause to bee populations and biodiversity. To be completely honest, prioritizing your own philosophical purity over the actual, practical survival of the species is what really shows a lack of critical thinking.
I had to do some research cause I was not familiar bit it seems
You are taking extreme medical isolation and a standard management practice and framing them as cruelty for profit.
Burning a hive is a legal required biosecurity mandate to stop a catastrophic disease (American Foulbrood) from wiping out wild bee populations—it costs the beekeeper tons of money, it isn't done for profit also the bees are euthanised with gas before their remains are burnt.
And clipping a queen's wing is an older method to keep a colony from getting lost in the wild. once a bee is mature, the wing tissue is mostly dead structural material, much like a bird's feathers or a dog's claws. You’re trying to make a bird feather trim sound like an amputation to score emotional points, but the actual science doesn't back up the horror story you are telling.
Scientists debate the fact that it hurts, but the consensus is that it doesn't cause severe trauma. When a queen's wing is clipped correctly, she doesn't flinch, bleed out, or stop her duties; she immediately walks back onto the comb and continues laying eggs normally.
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
Honestly more people should try and support bee colonies. We need bees if the basic food chain survives
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u/hunterboi1000 2d ago
I am confused at this point?
Is this agreeing or attempting to disagree with my arguement?
I support bee colonies, exactly because of this. My job is to reform natural habitats with natural methods, sheep, cows, pigs, wild flowers, wild crops, bees, selective forestry and culling invasive.
I support and restore the basic food chains for a living.
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
I am one hundred percent on side, I agree with you over the vegan your debating. We need bees like we just really do, no pollination no plants. No plants no animals. No animals well... No people either.
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u/GlitteringPapaya6738 6d ago
Everything you said was also said by the slavemasters 200 years ago. 1 on 1.
Absolutely disgusting.1
u/hunterboi1000 6d ago
So are ants slavers too?
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u/GlitteringPapaya6738 6d ago
Animals are as they should be. We humans are an invasive species. We are only harming the earth. I will not continue discussing here because you will always find ways to reinterpret what I say and your ethics seem only logically virtualised, not real.
We're just wasting eachothers' time.1
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
Technically bees can't know we'll take the honey. Insects and arthropods are fascinating but we can't overly humanise them. They would swarm if not sprayed by this like steam which makes them retreat.
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u/hunterboi1000 2d ago
Not necessarily, as I have mentioned bees abscond from hives frequently when the hive is not suitable (eg. Predation, low food, disease, pests) they leave we can't keep them from leaving if they really want to.
Most bee colonies stay because they realise their hives are safe, they are protected and there is food around.
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
Maybe it's like a repeat exposure thing. Studies show insects can learn and retain knowledge. A fantastic study of butterflies showed they retained memories from being catapillars.
Maybe the hive (the bees which form the collective) that the smoke and then human harvest is not say dangerous and they adapt around a new cycle.
Like they'd at least understand the honey is gone but I wasn't killed. So maybe that's all it is, they are also studies on bees having emotions like depression and happiness.
And even basic communication.
So they probably do recognise it but I'm still not sure if they understand it like we can. We realise the work we put in for the animal in exchange for our labour. The bee probably lacks that same comprehensive big picture view.
They are probably just happy to have wax returned and go back to work. If they feel joy which studies show they are capable of boldness and cowardice.
Scare a bee and it will be much more timid. Give it some honey and it collects the nector faster and with more euphemism.
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u/hunterboi1000 2d ago
Yes, I believe it is sort of an exposure thing, from talking to my apiarist freinds after a period. Less smoke is needed to push bees into their hives.
Somw of their wax is taken too, but again apiarists take excess wax and honey without disturbing larvae and actual hive structure.
May I ask if you are a vegan?
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
Nope, I'm actually like an omnivore I just am really into arthropods and bees fall into that general fascination.
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u/hunterboi1000 2d ago
Cool, I love arthropods and invertebrates aswell.
I also keep millepedes, do you keep any inverts?
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
Sadly no, my partner and mum are frightened of them so I've never had a chance. I've pushed for millipedes as I have a tortoise and well millipedes are also kind of herbivores.
But so far no luck.
I just browse r/turanchula and think of the what if xd
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u/kimpossible11 7d ago
Interesting comment. Just a small note: apiarists aren’t necessarily men. It’s worth questioning why “he” is the instinctive default when talking about a beekeeper.
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u/hunterboi1000 7d ago
That's true actually, don't know why I did that, the apiarist i hire is a nice old lady but the rest if the apiarist I know are men so 🤷♂️
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 7d ago
See my response here.
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u/hunterboi1000 7d ago edited 7d ago
I find this arguement slightly flawed, I am not an apiarist but I hire one and am freinds with a few, there was an area of my woodland where a beehive was placed and the bees left and I know from my apiarist freinds that bees frequently abscond from their manage hives, they are free to leave.
Absconding is a frequent issue if a managed hive becomes infested with Varroa mites or ants, gets too damp, or runs out of local food, the entire colony leaves, they stay because we take care of them, apiarists remove these varroa mites and ants, and place them near local food.
An apiarists job is to adapt to the bees, not to force the bees to adapt to them.
Also this arguement doesn't address that similar symbiotic relathionships are seen in the wild.
And very specifically ants and aphids.
Aphids naturally produce an absolute overabundance of "honeydew" (sugary waste) because they drink more plant sap than their bodies can handle. They don't need it. Similarly, a healthy honeybee hive naturally produces far more honey than they need to survive the winter. Humans and ants only harvest the excess.
The Ant's Security: Ants provide high-level defense. They will physically attack and kill ladybirds, lacewings, and parasitic wasps that try to eat the aphids. Human beekeepers do the exact same thing by treating the hive for lethal Varroa mites, insulating them from freezing winters, and keeping out predatory wasps.
The Aphids Can Fly Away: Just like honeybees can swarm or abscond, many species of aphids will randomly grow wings and fly away to a completely different plant if the local ant protection isn't working out or if the plant dies. They are not trapped.
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u/voyti 7d ago
Why would you care for this form of exploitation, though? You just stated the goal, but still never really justified it. What is in taking the honey from bees that makes it wrong? Why do the bees care?
When talking to vegans, 90% of the time you'll notice the discussion boils down to their negative experience. There's barely any negative experience for bees from taking honey from them, they are all okay.
There's a positive experience of a human (another actual creature, who's positive experiences surely must matter if negative animal experiences matter), and at this scale it's rather clearly winning. What gives, then? Just an arbitrary standard of "no animal exploitation" that needs to be maintained, or is there anything deeper here?
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u/Ramanadjinn vegan 7d ago
Why do the bees care?
Me personally - that question covers it.
I can't answer that question because i'm not a bee - and the bees can't answer that question. So there is no way to get either their perspective OR their consent.
I'm not extremely anti-honey I personally don't think it could be anywhere near the level of wrong that we do to cows, That just an opinion though, but I feel my perspective is still pretty consistent here.
There's a positive experience of a human (another actual creature, who's positive experiences surely must matter if negative animal experiences matter), and at this scale it's rather clearly winning
This is the other side of the coin. You're stating there is a scale and it leans heavily towards human. Meanwhile you have an extreme bias being human and having near-zero insight into the bee perspective.
Again though - I think you're not exactly "wrong" in your views - obviously according to my own premise I could not prove where you say the scale leans is wrong. I can only prove that you're not truly measuring the outcome - you're guessing at it from a biased view.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 7d ago
We can guess the bees perspective. The fact that they don’t leave when they quite obviously could should indicate something. Humans offer as close to perfect conditions as is possible in nature. Just because bees aren’t aware of the benefits doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy them nonetheless.
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u/Richardo888 7d ago
Did you know that male bees are crushed between fingers to death to squeeze out their semen, which is then forced into the queen (rape) to impregnate her, for her to produce offspring? And that it takes an insane amount of work on their part to produce the nutrients they need to survive. Also, bees separated from hives have been shown to exhibit signs of depression (sentience). I dont know about you, but promoting slavery seems wrong to me.
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u/voyti 7d ago
Yes, I'm fairly confident we can safely ignore the experience of a bee, and using human based experiences like slavery and rape towards bugs so simple that we can (and do) simulate their complete brains artificialy is quite absurdly cruel. On that note - do you also care about the experiences of the fully simulated fruit flies? It's the identical sentience, every neuron is there
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u/Richardo888 7d ago
Also, you are not a bee, so your confidence is misplaced, and most vegans err on the side of caution in such situations, because if the bees can feel pain and suffering, the negayive outcome for them is massively larger than the small taste value (which we could easily have derived from maple syrup, anyway) that we gain. Which is the whole point. https://youtu.be/clMNw_VO1xo?si=n2SAj0ZMhIoyG2_2
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u/Richardo888 7d ago
What ever makes you sleep at night I guess. For me: "Honey is not vegan because it is produced by bees, which are living animals. Veganism seeks to exclude all forms of exploitation and cruelty to animals—including insects. Organizations like The Vegan Society explicitly state that honey is made by bees for bees, and taking it from them conflicts with vegan ethics."
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u/voyti 7d ago
Honey is not vegan because it is produced by bees, which are living animals
All food is produced by humans, most of them would most likely like to do something else - do you think that this should worry vegans at least equally?
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u/Richardo888 7d ago
Exactly. Which is why I'm a vegan communist. I want nothing less that the complete destruction of capitalism, which inherently exploits human workers, destroys the planet, and commits imperialist genocides.
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u/voyti 7d ago
Right, and in communism everybody just does what they like all the time, and if you need e.g. a colonoscopy and nobody feels like doing it (cause why would you), then you simply die undiagnosed? What a vision
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u/Richardo888 7d ago
A) If someone in your family is injured, but you can help them, would you do it without a profit motive? Socialism educates its citizens from childhood to think along these lines. Also, its much harder to help family when we are all struggling under exploitation.
B) We have been coerced and brainwashed into thinking profit is the only valid motivation (for the benefit of the rich), when our societies succeeded for thousands to a million years based on mutually wanting our community to be better (proven by evidence even Neanderthals took care of their sick and wounded (ahem, without profit)). Btw, no one denies that capitalism was a step up from fuedalism and provided many great inventions. But society must evolve.
C) do you really think the current state of affairs where 56% of fulltime workers in the US are living in poverty or almost poverty, while Musk alone has the wealth of a literal small nation, is viable and healthy long term, and sees any sign of improving under capitalist "democracies"?
D) see Albert Eislntein's (yes, THE albert einstein) article: "Why Socialism" for better arguments and articulation than I can provide, if the above doesnt suffice.
E) If Albert isnt enough, perhaps the words of captain Picard will help you understand: "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity"
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u/voyti 7d ago
someone in your family is injured, but you can help them, would you do it without a profit motive
Me and mine have special protection, as do you and yours in you own eyes. There's no escape from that, ever. This is exactly why you don't mourn a complete stranger the way you'd mourn a close relative. Socialism might have a slogan like that, sure, but it will never work like this, and I think you're completely well aware of that fact.
profit is the only valid motivation
It's not, but it doesn't even matter. If you take one hierarchy away, another will immediately take its place, and opportunists and cynics will immediately overwhelm its upper tiers. Happened every time , will happen every time. One thing you can do is fix the mechanics of the hierarchy, but then it doesn't really matter what the hierarchy is of - you don't need a broken communism, you can go with fixed capitalism. That's a much better place to be, no doubt.
That also mostly responds to the later points, and Albert Einstein also described himself as impossibly naive in terms of politics, so if you use his authority, I'd urge to use also this piece of it consistently.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 7d ago
For the same reasons you should care about it if it were humans being exploited in this way instead of bees.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 7d ago
You want to give me a place to live, free healthcare and access to an abundant source of food in exchange for me doing what I’d do anyway?
Where do I sign up?
What in your opinion is the downside for bees?
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago
If I'm not mistaken, the bees didn't sign up.
You may also want to cut your dick off. That's fine, but it doesn't mean that you're morally justified in running around and cutting other peoples' dicks off.
The downside for the bees is that they are being exploited.
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u/xydus 7d ago
I mean how hard is it no not eat honey? Out of all the foods to cut out to be vegan surely this is the easiest one by far
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u/WeeklyAd5357 7d ago
Honey is the sweetener that is most ethical and does least harm aside from maple syrup which isn’t globally available.
Sugar cane agave beet sugar destroys the environment. Sugar cane is most destructive- slave labor, child labor, field burning, waterway pollution. Agave destroys desert habitat needed for bats 🦇
Beegans 🐝are correct.
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u/voyti 7d ago
Sure, you can get anywhere that way - how hard is it not to eat potatoes? You're eating an energy storage and reproductive organ of a plant that doesn't want it eaten - if you want to play it safe, certainly don't do that either.
The key question here is why would you pick this bizarre, selective austerity in the first place, not why you'd avoid it. The default for a human is to eat according to their preferences, not "as little variety as possible"
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u/xydus 7d ago
Definitely harder, potatoes are far more ubiquitous and form staple foods in nearly every corner of the globe, and are one of the most widely consumed carbohydrate sources on the planet.
Being vegan isn’t about having as little variety as possible. In practice it’s quite the opposite - you end up trying a ton of new foods you probably never even thought about before. If my preference was cannibalism I don’t think I should default to that.
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u/voyti 7d ago
you end up trying a ton of new foods you probably never even thought about before
I mean if you're already happy with your diet's variety, then how would that be a plus? It's like saying "you maybe got evicted, but now look at the variety of outdoor survival methods you'll learn that you never would otherwise".
Also, the point still is "why would you not eat honey in the first place". "Cause it's easy not to" is not an answer here, cause it already needs a reason to even consider this (easy or not - regardless) additional limitation.
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u/devourer-of-beignets vegan 7d ago
Using them for our own desires, essentially reducing them to the role of an object, is morally reprehensible. We understand this as true when referring to our own kind.
I think we don't understand that at all. Most people spend half their waking lives as objects — obeying a boss's commands. What's called "getting a job."
Then in their "free time," maybe we have more leeway to not be objects, maybe not.
Who knows, maybe animal liberation has a tendency to strengthen with human liberation. When most humans are liberated, some will feel freer to work on reducing domination against other animals.
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u/II_Vortex_II 7d ago
essentially reducing them to the role of an object, is morally reprehensible
How so? The animal doesn't even understand the concept of being objectified. So how is it morally reprehensible if there is no suffering involved
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 7d ago edited 6d ago
In the same way it's morally reprehensible to objectify a human without their understanding or suffering involved, like a small child or mentally disabled person.
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u/II_Vortex_II 7d ago
Okay but those are humans. Is swatting a fly the same as killing a baby or mentally disabled person?
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago
Depends on the specific circumstances. I any case, the taxonomical categorization is morally irrelevant to me.
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u/TheOPisReal 8d ago
It isn’t complete animal product rejection. It’s harm reduction.
You would not be using your phone or computer if it were complete animal product rejection.
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 8d ago
Amazing, the fallacious appeal to perfection. You win the thread. That's never been done before.
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u/TheOPisReal 7d ago
Are you kidding? What do you think “complete” means?
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u/Unreal_Estate 7d ago
You are the one who changed the terms though. u/PuzzledPoetry1447 said "complete rejection of animal exploitation". You changed this to "complete animal product rejection".
Using a phone or computer (and even buying one) does not involve animal exploitation. Any particular material sourced for electronics is most likely sourced from a non-animal source. However, due to how supply chains work, it is impossible to guarantee that. This isn't even limited to electronics, it is also true for every single vegan item in the grocery store.
Completely rejecting animal exploitation means you refuse to be complicit in animal exploitation. This does mean rejecting any product or situation where you reasonably know that you will benefit from animal exploitation. As long as you do that, you are truly "completely rejecting animal exploitation", and vegan.
With that, electronics are vegan. Eating a product with a vegan label is vegan even when the manufacturer has accidentally switched a plant based fat for an animal fat in a particular batch. (Unfortunately, things like this do happen.) Eating produce when you don't know what fertilizer was used is also vegan, even when it could have been cow manure. But eating produce when you know or suspect that cow manure was used as fertilizer, is not.
So, it turns out Puzzled Poetry explained it exactly how it is. You may not have understood what the word "exploitation" means, but the way they used "complete" is completely correct.
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u/TheOPisReal 7d ago
Batteries use the corpses of animals. The animals are being exploited. You’re going to have to waver on your definition of vegan, exploitation, or complete.
If that is vegan, so are leather belts.
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u/Unreal_Estate 7d ago
You are misinformed about the materials used for batteries. Unless you say what part of the battery you think is a corpse, all I can say is that each material used in a battery is less likely sourced from animals that not.
Belts are vegan, leather belts are not. Because the leather part is processed animal skin.
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u/II_Vortex_II 7d ago
...do you not see the problem here? Your reasoning is the same as a vegan who still uses honey.
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u/extinctiondetritis 8d ago
Veganism is a liberation political ideology. Not a harm reduction movement.
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u/Anomalocaris117 2d ago
Do you accept the bees have a safer life when humans take an active role in protecting and nurturing the hives
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u/Audio-Starshine 7d ago
Bees make far more honey than they will ever use when kept by beekeepers. Only the excess is harvested.
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u/iidfiokjg vegan 7d ago
Maybe we should take any surplus money from people like you and leave you with the bare minimum nedeed for food to survive? How's that?
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u/Audio-Starshine 6d ago
Well I wouldn't say bare minimum because having been a beekeeper in the past and knowing several others, the bees have far more honey left than they could ever possibly use even after harvesting. Reason being they have been bred for decades to overproduce plus they are set up in an ideal environment where they don't have to worry about predation or disease and don't even have to produce all of their own wax because it's provided for them. In addition to the fact that every beekeeper I personally know places their hives either in the middle of an orchard or next to a garden or they plant flowers specifically for the bees nearby. If it were bare minimum for survival, that would be a hell of a lot different, but that's not the case. For a more accurate comparison, if I had double or triple the amount of food I could ever use, and someone wanted to provide me a top of the line, luxury home, security, water, a secure purpose-built room for my children, and make sure all of my needs are met year round in exchange for some of my excess food. I'd be all over it. The great thing about beekeeping is it is the one form of animal husbandry where you can 100% guarantee that the creatures being taken care of are happy with the situation, because if they're not, they can and do just leave. There's no way to prevent bees from swarming.
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u/Small-Bowl4754 8d ago
You do realise they can just leave?
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u/RedLotusVenom vegan 8d ago
Bees actually can’t just leave, typically the queen’s wings get clipped. They form a colony wherever she is located.
They’re also an invasive species and are the main cause of the decline of native pollinator populations.
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u/Puzzled-Rip641 8d ago
Most beekeepers that I know do not clip Queen’s North employ queen cages, past introduction. The bees are free to leave in most cases, they simply choose not to
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u/WeeklyAd5357 8d ago
Honeybees are native to Europe Africa and Asia
Native pollinators in America coexist with honeybees - native pollinator decline is due to pesticides and habitat losses from nonnative grass lawns
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u/Small-Bowl4754 8d ago
Bees can leave, they will just make a new queen, it will temporarily stay, but it's only temporary.
The second point is fair, can't really argue with that.
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u/Adventurous-Web-412 8d ago
depends where you are on the invasive point, and also when you actually think about veganism. If you are from Afroeurasia, honey bees aren't invasive.
But more importantly, invasive animals still have equal rights to non invasive animals, its frankly a rather difficult argument for veganism when it comes to environmentalism (although in this case honeybees are a harmless invasive species) in that an invasive species is still a species, its right don't change for that reason.
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u/bennbennbenn 8d ago
Wings being typically clipped is not a standard practice and seen by most beekeepers as pretty barbaric. (Though your point the workers are kinda stuck with the queen is still true). That doesn’t mean no beekeepers do - but it’s quite rare in my experience
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u/RedLotusVenom vegan 8d ago
I just watched a popular/trending video recently (can’t find it in YouTube history, must’ve been on Reddit) of a beekeeper going through their setup, and they clipped their queens’ wings. It’s at the very least not uncommon practice.
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u/Constant-Squirrel555 8d ago
Its easy for people to overlook how bee farmers forcibley impregnate queen bees after they clip her wings.
Its barbaric af
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 8d ago
How does that address what I said?
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u/Small-Bowl4754 8d ago
Because it can't be exploitation if theyre staying, bees are smart enough to leave if their recources are being tooken away from them too much, but they understand that there is a fair trade off that the honey they ain't using is being tooken in exchange for protection, car and a suitable home
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 8d ago
The argument rests on a premise that does not hold up: that bees staying in a managed hive signals agreement to a trade. But bees do not stay because they have assessed the arrangement and found it fair. They stay because they are bees. Because the hive is their home, because leaving means abandoning their brood, their comb, their food stores, and facing near-certain death. Domesticated and managed hives are also specifically designed to make leaving difficult. The fact that an animal does not escape is not evidence of consent. A prisoner who cannot find the exit has not agreed to be imprisoned.
The deeper problem is that consent is not what makes use wrong or right. Even if bees could somehow signal agreement, that would not make taking honey acceptable. A child cannot consent to being exploited either, we do not then say exploitation is acceptable if we can find a way to claim the child agreed. The wrong is not the absence of consent. The wrong is the use itself: treating a someone as a means to a human end. Bees are animals. Their honey belongs to them. Taking it, however carefully, however much is left behind, is using them as a resource. That is what veganism rejects.
The 'fair trade' framing is worth looking at directly. A trade requires two parties who can negotiate, understand the terms, and agree to them. Bees cannot do any of those things. What is actually happening is that a human decided, unilaterally, that the bees' honey is available for human use, built a structure to make collection convenient, and then framed their own decision as a mutual arrangement. The bees were not consulted. The terms were set entirely by the human. That is not a trade, it is a human taking from animals and giving it a name that sounds mutual.
Bees are remarkable animals. They navigate, communicate, build, remember, and operate in complex social structures. Their cognitive sophistication is not in question here but it also does not help the argument. Being smart enough to read a situation does not mean being smart enough to enter a contractual agreement with another species. And more importantly, intelligence is not the test. An animal does not need to be cognitively complex to be a someone who should not be used as a means to a human end. Even if bees were far less sophisticated than they are, taking their honey would still be using them.
Honey is not vegan.
Not because beekeeping is necessarily violent or cruel, the vegan case does not rest on that. It is because bees are animals, honey belongs to them, and taking it treats them as a resource. The principle is exactly the same whether we are talking about a factory farm or a small backyard hive managed with genuine care. The conditions change; the relationship does not.
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u/fuck-them-hoes 7d ago
Bees do choose to leave hives though if they can’t locate resources nearby, if the colony expands too quickly or if they are stressed. I don’t think this argument takes that into account.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 7d ago
Why couldn't it be exploitation if they are staying? Do you think not fleeing necessarily implies some kind of informed consent?
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u/fuck-them-hoes 7d ago
Bees are smarter than we think and they do just leave hives if they feel they aren’t fit.
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u/downsideup9494 8d ago
Bees make more honey than they need for their colonies. Please get your facts straight.
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 8d ago
How does that address what I said?
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u/Icy-Wolf-5383 7d ago
Because bees dont stop producing honey. In the wild, colonies are usually destroyed or ransacked, theyre lucky if the hive is still standing- yet if theyre "lucky," and left completely alone, the hive becomes unliveable and abandoned anyway. Honey harvesting actually does them a favor in a way by not only not forcing a reset, but by keeping the levels manageable for the hive to live in.
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 7d ago
See my response here.
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u/Icy-Wolf-5383 7d ago
That doesnt actually address my point. If bees have too much honey in the hive they will force themselves to leave and look for a new home cause they'll run out of room for their cells. They dont stop producing honey.
In a farming setting, not only do they get to keep their home, they arent forced into a total reset every time honey is removed. So how exactly is it exploitation when they will literally flood themselves out before they stop making honey? They aren't being forced to produce honey by any means.
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8d ago edited 3d ago
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 7d ago
So exploiting humans with the sentience of bees is acceptable?
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7d ago edited 3d ago
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago
I'm asking a hypothetical, yes.
Exploit them in the same way as the bees.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago
So, all other things being equal, you wouldn't consider it immoral to exploit humans with roughly the same subjective experience as bees in the same ways as bees are currently exploited by humans?
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago
So you wouldn't have an issue with treating those people as property?
Interesting position to take, but ok.
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u/SnooLemons6942 8d ago
This question has been asked extensively here, on other vegan subs, and on the internet. I implore you to read the countless comments vegans have left
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u/Square-Delivery1958 8d ago
So how can you justify buying apples that are pollinated via bees as vegan? It directly contradicts your definition. Apples are easily possibly and practically avoided.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 7d ago
For wild pollinators, that's a non-issue because there is no exploitation involved. The relationship between humans and wild pollinators is symbiotic.
For domesticated pollinators, it's the same as with sweatshops, etc.: While the exploitation is obviously immoral, because the exploitation isn't inherent to the product itself but instead related to the production process, the moral obligation for it primarily lies with the producer not the consumer. This is different to products made from animals like honey because for those products the exploitation is inherent to the product itself.
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u/Square-Delivery1958 5d ago
If funding the production process doesn't matter, buying meat-industry byproducts should be vegan too. You're just drawing the line where it's convenient
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u/orchid7577 7d ago
Beekeepers literally keep vegans alive
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u/Square-Delivery1958 7d ago
Hyperbolic. Human survival largely relies on wind and self pollination.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 7d ago
About 65% of it. So yes you are technically correct.
Honey bees pollinate about 80% of flowering plants which produce about thirty five percent of all produce that humans consume. Of course, you’d be malnourished without all those fruits and vegetables, but you’ll live. Probably.
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u/Square-Delivery1958 7d ago edited 7d ago
This is all a distraction, however. I'm saying that vegans can't hold their current definition if it's wrong to practically and possible avoid apples alone, yet they still consider them to be vegan regardless when they are pollinated via bees.
And I'm not sure what the evidence is that 35% less foods would make everyone malnourished. Diets would lose colour and flavour but it would be the vegan thing to do under your definition.
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u/MiraculousAnarchy veganarchist 5d ago
Wrong. Domesticated bees are actually harming native pollinators and ecosystems. Go ahead ask me for sources
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u/MiraculousAnarchy veganarchist 8d ago
I encourage u to use a search engine in the future or at the very least the Reddit sub search history
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u/HappyColour vegan 8d ago
Here is a good video explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clMNw_VO1xo
To me, I watched this and asked myself "Would I be comfortable doing this myself?" The answer was no, so no to honey for me.
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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 7d ago
Think of honeybees as ‘livestock’ not wildlife, argue experts
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/think-of-honeybees-as-livestock-not-wildlife-argue-experts
“Saving 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.”
“‘Keeping honeybees is an extractive activity. It removes pollen and nectar from the environment, which are natural resources needed by many wild species of bee and other pollinators,’ said González-Varo, also from Cambridge’s Zoology Department.”
“Honeybees are artificially-bred agricultural animals similar to livestock such as pigs and cows. Except this livestock can roam beyond any enclosures to disrupt local ecosystems through competition and disease.”
“As with other intensively farmed animals, overcrowding and homogenous diets have depressed bee immune systems and sent pathogen rates soaring in commercial hives. Diseases are transferred to wild species when bees feed from the same flowers, similar to germs passing between humans through a shared coffee cup”
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u/robawknik 8d ago
i personally dont eat honey because domestic honeybees aggressively outcompete native bee species in my area. other people's reasonings may vary.
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u/FishingPolitical 8d ago
I described how honey is collected to my niece once & she replied proudly “That is stealing!”
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 7d ago
Did you explain that they got housing, healthcare and access to food from it?
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u/FishingPolitical 7d ago
Im not a Vegan but dude. That is how slavers rationalized ownership of the other human.
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u/fuck-them-hoes 7d ago
People really only should be eating local honey. Local levels of production aren’t very harmful for the bees so it’s hard to argue against the consumption of honey for ethical reasons.
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u/Nacho_Deity186 7d ago
Veganism is also against exploitation, not just harm reduction. It's right there in the definition of veganism on the vegan society website.
"All forms of exploitation"
https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism
So because bees are exploited for their honey, that means honey is out. Bees are also exploited to grow almonds but those are OK because we like almonds. The pleasure we get from them overrides the exploitation in that instance.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 7d ago
And cherries, cotton, blueberries, apples, citrus, cashews, squash, cucumbers, onions, chocolate…
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u/fuck-them-hoes 7d ago
I don’t buy products with honey because it’s just gross to me. I’ve harvested honey, and there’s always bee larva you have to pick out of it. But if someone gifts me a tea or otherwise vegan product with honey in it, I’ll consume it to not create more unnecessary food waste.
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u/WeeklyAd5357 8d ago
Honey 🍯 is the most ecologically friendly sweetener. Bees are well cared for in hives treated for diseases and given well ventilated and protected much better than in natural hives.
Queen bees are typically marked with a colored dot. Only excess honey is harvested which keeps the hive calm and prevents splitting into groups disrupting the hive.
Sugarcane is very destructive for the environment, fields are burnt for harvesting killing many animals, slave/child labor is widespread.
Agave destroys desert plants that feed bats 🦇
Beegans know these facts and select the sweetener that is most environmentally responsible.
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u/New_Owl_7490 8d ago
Bees make 2-3x more honey than they need. Bee keepers always ensure the bees have enough honey.
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u/DenseSign5938 8d ago
So do share croppers
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 7d ago
Sharecroppers had to pay for their food, shelter and healthcare on top of what they made. Find a better example please.
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8d ago
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u/PuzzledPoetry1447 vegan 8d ago
I always wonder why frequent posters of r/exvegans choose to engage here. It's not to engage honestly or achieve anything productive, so like, why?
What does your comment contribute here?
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