Is honey production unethical?

 By Jeanie

In their Save our Bees Campaign, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) state that, as a result of disease, pesticides and climate change, the honeybee population has been nearly decimated (some truth in that) “but since the demand for the bees’ honey and other produces remains high, these tiny animals are raised by industries, much like chickens, pigs and cows are”.  This, I think, is nonsense.  As a rule beekeepers are deeply concerned with the welfare of their charges and go to great lengths to keep their colonies healthy.  They do not kill off the hives after stealing all the honey!   Why on earth would they? If they did the bees would die and dead bees are not the beekeepers’ objective.  Bees adapt to the loss of honey and good beekeepers make sure to leave adequate honey in the hive for the survival of the colony.  

In a disingenuous piece aimed at children with the title “Bees used for honey aren’t treated very nicely” PETA compares bees to factory farmed animals and say they are forced to live in cramped conditions.  They don’t mention that a manmade beehive is no more or less cramped than one found in the wild.  In fact, in experiments where boxes were placed close to trees, the bees chose the boxes.

PETA argues that keeping bees in captivity is harmful to the environment as they are needed to be free to act as pollinators.  Again, this is disingenuous.  While hives may be introduced to pollinate farmland or orchards, bees are totally free to range over kilometres of wildflowers and fly wherever they wish.  Bees return each night to their safe, warm, dry hives.  If they didn’t want to return, they wouldn’t.  They are not held captive and they can leave whenever they want. 

I understand why vegans don’t eat honey – it is a by-product of bees and therefore unsuitable for people who exclude all produces that are animal or animal-derived.  But why do they not just leave it there? Some vegan websites complain that beekeepers feed sugar and syrup to bees.  This is true.  There are seasons when bees are unable to find food on their own, for example when flowers are not in bloom.  Without flowers bees die.  Without a beekeeper feeding them, bees die.  For example in Western Canada, where it is cold for 7 months of the year, hives often run short of food in April.  So beekeepers feed them.  Without beekeepers there would be no honeybees and no local honey in western Canada.

Vegans suggest alternatives to the evil honey market including coconut sugar and molasses.  These products need to be processed in a factory and shipped halfway around the world to reach us while locally produced honey is readily available nearly everywhere. Not to mention the deforestation and loss of habitat to numerous other creatures that is the result of large-scale agriculture, including the production of coconut sugar. It is not an environmentally acceptable alternative.

Raw sugar for molasses

There are concerns.  As a result of mono-cropping, especially in the USA, there can be 700,000+ acres of a single crop.  Bees are shipped in for a few weeks and then sent off to wherever they are needed for the next mono-crop.  This can cause stress to local bee populations and a system of diversified, smaller-scale agriculture that could support a year-round population of bees would be better – but that is an argument about bees in agriculture, not honey.

I am sure that it is true that some beekeepers are less careful with their bees than they should be but, as a general rule, beekeepers like bees and they want the best for them. It makes good business sense.  Honeybees are thriving because beekeepers are keeping them alive and healthy and producing honey.  Added bonus – they don’t eat them.

When I started researching this blog I thought it was interesting but it has actually made me quite cross.  I intend to react by eating as much honey as I can.