Protecting the Pollinators

Honey is not vegan simply because it is an animal by-product, but the bees are taking over. We need to be protecting the other pollinators.

I often get asked if honey is vegan, and I wrote about this not long ago in my article: How Honey is Made.

I’ll do a wee overview of that post:

The bee has a large nervous system capable of transmitting pain signals. You can witness this yourself as bees move to avoid pain. Stinging a human is a last resort for the honey bee because one sting and it dies. Those hives you think are great homes believing the bee is free — think again. We enslave the bee with those apiaries and force it to make honey for our use.

Bees make the honey to have food over the winter months.

In the commercial trade, while they are out working for us, we rob their hive and steal their core products of honey, royal jelly and beeswax. This is done in the autumn, leaving the bees without nutrition for the winter. Instead, we feed them on sugar supplements.

The more ethical beekeepers do harvest the honey in the spring. However, there is still the process of harvesting the honey, and even beekeepers who love and respect their bees have unavoidable deaths.