Bees--long!

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

 

I've been unsure lately about my comfort level with

bee products. I'm a vegan and currently do not use or

consume bee products, but it's beginning to feel like

a grey area to me. This started when I was trying to

figure out what I could use as a base in homemade

balms and salves. Beeswax was out and paraffin is an

environmental disaster. In my conversations with

others, I came across a woman who keeps bees and knows

many beekeepers. Contrary to what I had read, she

(nor anyone she had ever known) killed their bees over

winter and she felt she had an interdependent

relationship with her bees, rather than one of

domination. They *would* kill the queen every couple

of years to increase honey production and would

supplement the bee's food supply with sugar water if

they ran out of honey.

 

In principle, I do not support using bee products

because I don't agree with " farming " any creature and

I feel we force our will on bees and exploit them.

But I also know that they are essential to pollination

and that wild/native bee populations are almost

extinct. At the same time, we are relying more and

more upon artificial and chemical pollination.

Without beekeepers, what happens to natural

pollination? Does this mean supporting local,

responsible beekeepers is ecologically sound? Does it

conflict with vegan ethics? Which is the greater

good: using bee products to support environmental

issues or continuing to eschew bee products because I

am against exploitation? Can we have a symbiotic and

interdependent relationship with bees--are we even

capable of this?

 

I hope someone has information and guidance. I'm

feeling pretty torn on this issue. If I am

misinformed, please inform me!

 

Thanks,

 

Nicole

 

 

 

Health - Feel better, live better

http://health.

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

 

Nicole, you asked " Without beekeepers, what happens to natural pollination? "

I always thought bees just naturally pollinate and would just keep the honey

for themselves. I see bees flying around/pollinating flowers naturally in

the garden all the time.... If you look really closely, you can see the

pollen on their legs as they fly around. Why are beekeepers necessary? I

thought all they do is profit from the bee's labor...

 

Steve, In my google search, I found one concise statement that I liked:

" In her 6-week lifespan, one honey bee produces 1/12 teaspoon of honey--yes,

that's one twelfth of a teaspoon! To make a pound of honey, a colony must

visit 2 million flowers, traveling over 55,000 miles. "

 

Even when I was a carnivore, the only time I would have eaten honey is if I

purchased it in a processed food product. With the plethora of other

sweeteners, it's easy enough to have life without honey. It's something I

never ate before anyways... I've included PETA's information below on honey.

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers,

Tammy

 

 

How About Honey?

 

In the honey industry, the buzz word is profit. Like factory farmers, many

beekeepers take inhumane steps to ensure personal safety and reach

production quotas. It is not unusual for larger honey producers to cut off

the wings of the queen bee so that she cannot leave the colony, or to have

her artificially inseminated on a bee-sized version of the factory farm

" rape rack. " (6) When the keeper wants to move a queen to a new colony, she

is carried with " bodyguard " bees, all of whom--if they survive transport--

will be killed by bees in the new colony.

 

Large commercial operations also may take all the honey instead of leaving

the 60 pounds or so that bees need to get through the winter. They replace

the rich honey with a cheap sugar substitute that is not as fortifying or

tasty. In colder areas, if the keepers consider it too costly to keep the

bees alive through the winter, they will destroy the hives by pouring

gasoline on them, killing most of the bees with the fumes, and setting them

on fire. Other times, keepers, who feel that lost bees are easily replaced,

allow them to die when trees are sprayed with insecticide. Bees are often

killed, or their wings and legs torn off, by haphazard handling.

 

To produce a pound of honey, bees must get pollen from 2 million flowers and

must fly more than 55,000 miles.(7) Honeybees returning to the hive from a

pollen-seeking expedition " dance " in figure eights to " map out " a route for

other bees to follow. These dances " encode information about the distance

and direction of a target that can be miles away from the nest, " said Thomas

D. Seeley of Cornell University.(8)

 

According to the Cook-DuPage Beekeepers' Association, humans have been using

honey since about 15,000 B.C., but it wasn't until the 20th century that

people turned bees into factory-farmed animals. In 1987, the honey " crop "

netted $115.4 million.(9) Luckily, many sweeteners are made without killing

bees: Rice syrup, molasses, sorghum, barley malt, maple syrup, and dried

fruit or fruit concentrates can replace honey in recipes.(10)