February
2002
The
Honey Files
By Angela Starks
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Honey has been extolled and enjoyed since the beginning
of recorded history. All of our major religious and ancient writings,
from the Bible to Egyptian manuscripts, praised it and offered instruction
in its use. In cultures the world over, it has been applied topically
for the healing of burns and blemishes, and eaten alone or as a condiment
for its sweet taste.
We all know that honey comes from bees, but how—and why—do
they make it? Honey is made from flower nectar that is collected by
honeybees and then regurgitated back and forth among them until it is
partially digested. After the final regurgitation, the bees fan the
substance with their wings until it is cool and thick. This mixture,
which we call honey (and is essentially bee vomit), is then stored in
the cells of the hives and used as their sole source of nutrition in
cold weather and other times when alternative food sources are not available.
It’s a Bee’s Life
The wondrous honeybees are constantly going about the business of sustaining,
directly or indirectly, most of all natural life. Approximately 80 percent
of all green growing things depend on bees for pollination. The intricate
synergy of all their skills and talents results in the masterpiece we
call honey. While we usually enjoy it by the spoonful, the painstaking,
laborious production that goes into it requires a dedication largely
unheard of among humans. Honeybees deserve our respect—that’s
for sure. Integral to that respect, the question arises: To eat their
honey, or not to eat it? This is often one of the last questions that
conscious eaters struggle with before honoring themselves with full
cruelty-free status.
The ‘official’ vegan position on honey is definitive: Honey
was ruled out for use by vegans in the 1944 manifesto of the British
Vegan Society (the first specifically vegan organization)—a position
that’s also adhered to by full vegan members of the American Vegan
Society. Why all the fuss? Perhaps a little myth-busting will help to
explain. Note: not all honeys are created equal, therefore the following
observations do not apply to some of the more carefully manufactured
products, but unfortunately they apply to most brands.
Bees are not inconvenienced when honey is collected
from their hives.
It is obvious that bees do object when they are disturbed, as can be
seen when they protect the hive by stinging the beekeeper. Beekeepers
must temporarily remove a number of the bees from their home to collect
their honey. During the process, even the most careful and experienced
beekeeper cannot avoid inadvertently injuring, squashing or killing
some of the bees. Smoke may be puffed into the hives to calm the bees
down and make them easier to handle. To remove the honey, air may be
forced through the hives to blast the bees out, the hives may be shaken,
or chemical repellents used.
Bees are a very low form of life, so it’s
okay to exploit them.
Bees are undoubtedly intelligent creatures, whose brains execute an
astounding ten trillion operations a second, surpassing any state-of-the-art
computer. We humans can only fantasize about replicating such a tool.
We can admire the bees’ cooperative societal structure, their incredible
sense of direction, their unique means of communication; and yet, it
doesn’t matter anyway, because vegans don’t typically judge
species based on their intelligence. Vegans consciously strive to do
no harm to any sentient life—including insects.
Insects don’t feel pain.
Bees have a sizeable nervous system capable of transmitting pain signals.
Scientific studies indicate that they feel pain.
We need to support the honey industries because their bees are needed
for pollination of plants and flowers.
Bees play a crucial role in the ecosystem by pollinating plants while
they are collecting flower nectar. It is something that they would do
whether or not humans were involved or reaped any profit. Utilizing
bees to pollinate agricultural crops in no way necessitates ravaging
their hives.
Honeybees are not captive; they are free to leave. They wouldn’t
stay on the bee farm if they didn’t like it.
Lone bees will rarely make it on their own; they need the support of
a colony. If a lone bee does leave, occasionally a new colony might
accept them, but most will kill them.
Perhaps the most important reason why the bees can’t just fly away
is that the beekeepers won’t let them. Beekeepers do their best
to prevent swarming (when bees congregate and fly away en-masse), because
not only would they lose half of their bees, but bees do not produce
honey during the intense preparation that goes into swarming. Beekeepers
often kill the old queen and replace her with a new one (older queens
are much more likely to swarm than younger ones), and since swarming
requires a queen, the queen’s wings are often clipped.
Captive bees are allowed to reproduce naturally.
Artificial insemination involving the death of the male is the norm
for the generation of new queen bees. The favored method of obtaining
bee sperm is to pull off the insect’s head: decapitation sends
an electrical impulse to the nervous system, causing sexual arousal.
The lower half of the headless bee is then squeezed to make it ejaculate,
and the resulting liquid is collected in a hypodermic syringe for insertion
into the female. This artificial insemination can be defined as rape.
Queen bees are naturally raised and selected from within the bees’
own colonies where they live out their natural life.
This may happen in nature, but not on factory bee farms, where queens
may be bought from commercial ‘queen suppliers.’ Hundreds
of queens are kept in cages waiting to be flown around the country.
After arrival at the post office or shipping depot, they can suffer
from overheating, cold, get banged around, and be exposed to insecticides.
Queens can live as long as five years but most beekeepers (whether in
factory farms or private backyards) kill and replace them about every
two years. There are a number of reasons for doing this which all resort
to exerting control over the colony; it helps to prevent aggression,
swarming, mite infestation, and to keep honey production at a maximum.
Artificial pheromones are also used to keep the colonies under control.
At least all the bees have to produce is honey; they are left alone
in all other respects.
It is the norm in animal agribusiness for farmers to squeeze the maximum
profit from their animals. To this end many beekeepers widen their business
beyond honey to include beeswax (the wax secreted by the bee for constructing
honeycombs) and bee venom, which is prized for its supposedly medicinal
qualities. Collection of the venom involves stretching an electrically
charged membrane in front of the hive. When the bees fly into it they
receive an electric shock and sting the membrane, thus depositing the
venom.
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