Comment on spoopy figs
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 3 days agoWould you eat honey from a natural hive without these practices?
Comment on spoopy figs
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 3 days agoWould you eat honey from a natural hive without these practices?
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Good question. I wouldn’t (we’re assuming casual foraging for fun and not a survival situation); it’s still not vegan, but it’d be arguably less unethical on a spectrum.
A con compared to the apiary is that these wild bees aren’t being artificially supplemented by e.g. sugar water; it’s live-or-die for them, and that’s their food. It’s not in me to take that away from them when I don’t have to.
If someone took like a teaspoon of honey (still the lifetime output of about a dozen bees) while giving the bees something greater in return, then I don’t think most vegans would think it’s inherently wrong, but like any ethical framework, whenever you try to find contrived boundaries, it’s kind of like “okay, but why?” It’s kind of engaging on the armchair but rarely in practice.
A huge pro compared to the apiary is avoiding, in addition to the physical mistreatment of the bees themselves, the perpetuation of the exploitation. If you one-and-done plunder a hive, that’s not vegan, but you’re not giving money to someone as a way of telling them “thanks, and keep doing this”.