i got banned from a vegan comm for saying that bees tend to leave hives if they’re not satisfied with the conditions.
I'm right and the other vegans are wrong
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Grail@multiverse.soulism.net to [deleted]
https://multiverse.soulism.net/static/media/posts/N2/Lp/N2LpuSPyRf8ZE6G.jpg
Comments
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Those extremists would be very upset if they could recognize reality
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 weeks ago
Reality is a social construct defined by the dominant ethnic group and manipulated by the Epstein class to control us.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Honestly, I’m on Team Honey, but that argument has a glaring hole in it.
Which is that many apiaries put an object over the entrance to the hive which lets worker bees pass freely but blocks the queen from escaping. And worker bees bonded to a queen will literally die before abandoning her.
So they can’t just leave. Bees that do that in the while travel as a colony in what’s called a swarm (which is actually very docile because they have no hive to defend). A bee that gets separated from its colony dies.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I’m not an expert by any means, but I have known some beekeepers. Once I was asked to go help because one of their hives had “swarmed”, meaning a group had left the box with the/a queen and had posted up on a neighbors rose bush.
mittyta@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I agree with you on the fact, but willingness to stay does not equal informed consent.
veryblandusername@fedinsfw.app 2 weeks ago
Informed consent does not exist in the animal world and I’m very saddened that that’s a sentence I had to type.
You cannot apply human standards to animals, they do not understand contract law…..again, a sentence I’m just very sad I had to type because they didn’t understand that.
CyanideShotInjection@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Exactly, feed them sugar and they’ll happily stay, that’s not saying it’s good for them. Plus all the monoculture on which they often feed is detrimental to their survival as a species. It’s funny to me how in this capitalist world, there is a living being that is somehow not immorally exploited.
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
completely fair, and a response that would hawe been greatly appreciated at the time.
LotrOrc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Listen i love animals and I 100% believe they are far more intelligent and empathetic than humans like to give them credit for, but even a human isn’t reading and signing apples terms and conditions i doubt an elephant is either
roguetrick@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not a vegan, but the current state of beekeeping is pretty shit. Taking the honey and replacing it with sugar water on top of the stresses of monoculture and killing varied flora with herbicides creating food deserts and using market conditions to race to the bottom on pollination contracts just results in a whole bunch of dead hives. Like you can both support sustainably practiced beekeeping and find the production of industrial honey to be a horror show.
decolo@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Regardless of whether you are vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, or other, if you aren’t horrified by industrial food production, you should be. This goes for industrial fish trawling & fish farming, industrial chicken cow and pig processing, honey I guess, even factory plant growing e.g. alfalfa almonds and corn (ruins the land and wastes water)
It’s so pervasive it’s hard to avoid everything.
maturelemontree@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
With that and the amount of recalled food in the US, the only way to way ethically right now is to just die.
tired_fedora@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
This is the correct response. Small-scale hobbyist beekeeping is awesome for humans, bees, and nature, and we absolutely positively need it. Industrial beekeeping, in which bees are carted across the continent to pollinate the fields of the highest paying industrial farmer may still be tolerable to the bee but far less so for nature. Many people don’t appreciate the nuance. Apis mellifera almost certainly won’t go extinct as long as beekeepers are around. But that’s not what we talk about when we say the bees are dying…
DokPsy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Industrial honey is just another facet of my distain and complaint of industrial agriculture as a whole. Almost every vegan argument I’ve ever encountered has been in reaction to the horrors of the industrial process
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Apis mellifera isn’t native to the Americas and neither are a lot of the plants they pollinate. They crowd out the native bees and destroy their habitat. Small-scale beekeepers working in populated spaces aren’t the problem though. And they rescue swarms that would otherwise be exterminated. Plus they’re more likely than the average person to know about their local natives and support them, by making carpenter bee homes or whatever.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I wouldn’t say “need”. European honey bees are a foreign invasive species. They displace the native pollinators. IMO hobbyists are worse because they are damaging the native bees without reason unlike industrial farmers that need the bees to produce the food we all eat.
And the reality is the vast majority of hobbiest bee keepers do it as a tax dodge. In most states, if you put a hive on your yard, you get to classify your house as a farm and pay virtually no property taxes.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Isn’t a lot of the industry produced “honey” actually honey flavoured corn syrup anyways?
remon@ani.social 2 weeks ago
The whole debacle can be easily avoided by just eating the bees directly.
cRazi_man@europe.pub 2 weeks ago
The whole debacle can be easily avoided by just eating the
beesflowers directly.Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Pssshhhh!!! Maybe you set your sights that low. You can eat your bee’s, I’ll only be eating A’s!
Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) …just tell me where the line starts…
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
You could probably get out of just about any argument this way.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Not a vegan.
Honey is a direct animal product. It is meant to feed them, much like milk feeds other cows.
I don’t get how that’s even arguable. I don’t care what you do and don’t eat, vegans, but honey is definitely an animal product. It’s not a product of flowers, it’s a product of bees. Veganism/vegetarianism are both already series of arbitrary lines drawn, though, so, whatever.
Also fish is meat, for those people out there. It’s an animal, you’re eating the animal: it’s meat. You can be a vegetarian that eats fish, that’s fine. You are all illogical to me. Morally right, rationally arbitrary and inconsistent and often hypocrites.
davetortoise@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I think this kind of obscures the reason people are vegan in the first place. It’s more than just a dogmatic creed against eating anything animal-derived.
For people who do it for moral reasons, the core issue is consent. Animals cannot consent to be eaten and cannot understand why they are born in captivity and made to suffer. Honey can be farmed with almost total freedom for the bees (can be, not necessarily always is), and bees also produce significantly more honey than they need so do not suffer from it being taken.
Others object to the fact that choosing to eat meat when you can reasonably choose not to, is semi-directly deriving pleasure from the death of an animal. Which is the same reason most people are disgusted by blood sports. Again, that clearly doesn’t apply to bees and honey, because honey is not the flesh of a dead animal.
For people who do it for environmental reasons, beekeeping has no significant negative environmental effect, as long as invasive species aren’t being used. If anything it can have a positibe impact on local ecosystems if done responsibly (again, can).
Extracting honey fundamentally differs from other animal derived products. Take milk; cows are forcefully separated from their children and hooked up to automatic milking machines. They must be kept confined, and keeping them in this way is generally only economical if they are slaughtered for meat as well. There is fundamentally suffering involved, which is not the case for beekeeping.
All this is to say, if someone wants to strictly abstain from animal products as a matter of principle, that’s their choice! But the vast majority of reasons to be vegan aren’t reasons not to eat honey.
SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Honey can be farmed with almost total freedom for the bees (can be, not necessarily often is)
This is why I don’t eat honey. The profit motive incentivizes unethical practices, so the logical choice is to deprive that industry of its profits.
Also, we will never meet the current demand for honey sustainably, so its necessary for some of us to voluntarily go without. I’m more than capable of being one of those people.
Can honey be produced ethically? Theoretically - but you could say the same for any animal product if you get theoretical enough. The truth is that it frequently isn’t produced ethically, and that’s enough for me to opt out. And I think anyone with the ability to stop consuming animal products ought to do likewise.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Thanks. I think the single biggest barrier to the population as a whole eating more ethically is the way that veganism as a movement has taken on this absolutist dogmatic stance that makes it a dealbreaker for most people. If you make people feel as though cutting their meat intake by 50% is pointless because you’re still going to call them murderers, why would they make the effort?
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
The problem with the carveouts that utilitarian vegans make for honey is that they’re largely falsifiable feel-good industry apologia. The claim that harvesting honey doesn’t harm bees is complete bollocks, really it’s in the same realm of the claim that milking a cow doesn’t harm the cow because she can always make more. The hive does need to downsize and drones do have to die to accommodate the loss of surplus, workers do forage further and compete more with other insects for nectar, while honey harvesting rarely harvests at the low extraction levels claimed to be harmless. If it were harmless the bees would never bother to make it, it takes a shitload of energy for them to produce it. It’s turn-brain-off dissonance territory but because Peter Singer said it’s OK they’re all willing to make the huge leap in logic to eat something that could just as easily have been maple syrup or agave nectar.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Yeah if there were apiaries around me who harvested honey ethically I might consider it. Same with milk and meat (well, probably not because I just don’t like them now, but on ethical grounds), if it was just the extras from having animals around.
But as soon as there’s money involved that all goes out the window and you get the wall of flesh at the back of every grocery store, which amounts to hundreds of years of subjective suffering from beings that just had the misfortune to be born inside the factory on four legs rather than outside of it on two.
slaacaa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Same. I’m not vegan, but honey is obviously an animal product, and we don’t get their consent to take it (much like eggs or milk).
Further arguments like bees leaving behind some hives are just self-serving - feel free to eat honey, or even milk and eggs, but then don’t call yourself vegan, because you are not.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I’m not began either, but it feels very strange for non-vegans to dictate to vegans what is and is not vegan and who is and is not a vegan.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But veganism at the core isn’t even about refusing to eat animal product. It’s about living a lifestyle that causes the least amount of suffering possible. Like some people would consider cocaine not vegan even though it’s not an animal product since an inconceivable amount of suffering is in the production and distribution of the product.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Most fertilizer contains animal waste, so are you allowed to use it to grow plants? Bees are also pollinators, so many plabts also depend on labor from bees. We live in a biosphere and interact with each other, so everyone needs to decide where their line is.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Yeah it’s about limiting the exploitation of others as much as possible or practicable. We don’t live in a perfect crystal world where we just feed ourselves by inclining our facets towards the sun and nothing ever suffers, but we can stop being such grubby little thieves about how we do feed ourselves.
heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I think the argument is that bees will do it regardless of consumption so may as well have some nectar/bee barf for sweetener?
pseudo@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
Veganism/vegetarianism are both already series of arbitrary lines drawn, though, so, whatever.
They are not fixed lines. I can’t speak about veganism but not eating red meat is vegetarism, leaving meat out except for holidays is vegetarism, eating fish but not meat is vegetarism. There is many way to be vegetarian. Even if there is one way that is much more popular and much more discutes these days. So I can also image non-fixed lines in veganism.
AA5B@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The arguments are usually that fish aren’t animals or more clearly insects aren’t animals, similar to how plants aren’t animals even if they react to damage. Very easy to argue.
I’ve seen arguments that whatever sentience fish may have, it’s too low level to be aware of pain. I don’t buy that but clearly fish have a simpler central nervous system than mammals. Also easy to argue.
Tiral@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well put.
cinoreus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Orcas would like to have a chat with you.
Context: just like vegetarians and non vegetarians, orcas are also pescaterian and Mammal eating. And they don’t mate with each other. Intact some lineages are hundreds of thousands of years apart.
Duhtocqueville@ttrpg.network 2 weeks ago
I don’t think there is a dietary restriction that doesn’t draw a complete arbitrary line at some point.
Fish isn’t meat is just the pope compromising with fishermen. Not eating an oyster but eating corn is a fairly arbitrary line as well.
AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Here is an article about why honey is not vegan. I’ll quote some notable excerpts.
The latest research in the field suggests bees are indeed sentient, and experience a host of sophisticated emotions. In his 2023 book What a Bee Knows, entomologist Stephen Buchmann states that bees are “self-aware,” highly intelligent, and possess a “primitive form of consciousness.”
The Guardian reported on the book earlier this year, saying bees’ apparent ability to recognize different human faces, process long-term memories while sleeping, and feel optimistic, playful, and scared raises “complex ethical questions” about our treatment of them.
…
…by using a piece of mesh that worker bees can pass through but [the queen bee] cannot, or clipping her wings. The structure contains horizontal sheets, where, because the queen bee is trapped nearby, the bees build their honeycomb.
To harvest the honey, beekeepers either smoke the bees to subdue them, or trap them with a clearing board over one or two days. Others kill the colony altogether.
Oftentimes, beekeepers replace the honey they remove with a sugar water substitute. This practice prompts honeybees to overwork themselves to replace the missing honey. Meanwhile, the sugar water lacks the nutrients, fats, and vitamins that bees need to be healthy.
Think of how labor rights, and even basic human rights are a constant struggle. Now imagine that you are a species that is regarded in such a way that everything you produce and everything you are is thoroughly classified a commodity. You do not have the capacity to speak against it. You are smart enough to suffer, but lack the degree of intelligence necessary to even begin to comprehend the enormity of what you are entrapped in. One species of animal has decided that all other species of animal are its products. None of the others can raise a voice against that. If human rights abuses abounds, how often do you think any kind of animal agricultural system is going to operate in a way that’s anything other than systematic abuse and suffering?
Is that really the kind of world you want to continue to create?
It’s easy to dismiss bugs, easy to think they don’t matter. But I think of them as a litmus test. We are the real equivalent to bugs, of what we think a God is like to us. Are we the kind of deitys that we would want to exist?
If you actually care about a mutualistic relationship between pollinators and humans, grow a garden.
cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Better to just eat cows. A cow is 1 suffering to feed many humans. A jar of honey is thousands of sufferings for one family to have sweeter tea.
Checkmate atheists
drmoose@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ah yes the classic trolley problem: 1,000 bees getting bullied or a dead cow. Very useful.
MouldyCat@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
You are smart enough to suffer
Not disagreeing with your overall point, just want to say that being smart is not a prerequisite for suffering. I don’t even think it’s possible to have a “primitive consciousness”, or a “sophisticated consciousness”. A being is either conscious or, well, it simply is not - it doesn’t exist. As an individual, you either exist independently or… you just don’t - not even blackness.
Let’s say that bees are conscious. Each individual bee has a unique internal existence just as you or I have. If you are a human (actually I’m assuming you are) then your experience certainly differs from the experience that a bee has, but that consciousness, that isolated spark of being, that is the same. If you were to shut your eyes and still your mind, and we imagine a bee could also do that (just give them imaginary eyelids for this thought experiment) then both of you would be experiencing the same thing, for that brief time you are both in that state of wordless shapeless existence.
You could perhaps wake up from this meditative state as the bee, coming to with a shake of your head, and fly off away from the flower you’d been resting on. “Woah what a weird dream” you’d think in bee language, then a new enticing fragrance from another flower fills your olfactory glands and you are drawn irresistibly towards it, quickly forgetting that funny dream of being a great big thing stuck heavily to the ground with two arms and legs hanging off your body.
Kratzkopf@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Thank you very much for that insight! I wasn’t aware of those practices used in bee keeping and their negative effects on the colony, nor of their emotional range.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I’ve been on the fence about honey for a while but tbh I’ve heard enough. I’ll just switch to maple spread or jam.
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There is evidence that plants have some form of sentience. They react to their environment and stimuli, and communicate with each other. We honestly shouldn’t be eating anything that was previously alive.
CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Don’t let PETA form your opinions. Plenty of good honey out there. Look for actual local beekeepers (not people selling ‘locally bottled honey’ because many of those are just buying mass market honey and rebottling locally). I wish that wasn’t a thing but it is.
AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Awesome. Also worth pointing out, eating honey by choice is kind of weird too if you think about it. It’s literally nectar that’s been regurgitated by bugs, I don’t get why so many would want that in the first place.
CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Going to challenge the legitimacy of your source here.
Who is out there killing the bees to harvest the honey? That’s not how it works and makes no sense.
Also, ‘replace the honey with sugar water’? Yes, sometimes bees get additional sugars, but they aren’t “replacing honey”.
This reads like someone who got some information and then extrapolated their own details to fit their preconceived agenda.
For the record, I’m a fan of the bees. Vegetarian since the 90s. And I’m 100% against spreading false or misleading information.
dismay3915@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Common sense goes a long way. Radicalism is always stupid.
Just eat meat once a week or month. Eat whatever in moderation.
Moderation is key.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Getting all meat eaters to cut intake by 50% is easier than getting 50% of meat eaters to turn vegan.
AA5B@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Arguably carnivores have already cut meat intake, at least red meat, to greater impact than vegetarians.
While I’m going by anecdote rather than data
- vegetarians/vegans are a small minority so limited impact
- many people I know have cut back on at least red meat for health or environmental reasons.
Basically one fewer burger a week by 100 people has more impact than one person not eating meat at all
kadotux@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
A moderate genocide will do, local centrist claims
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Radicalism is always stupid. Moderation is key.
How often do you eat babies?
Personally, I’m radically against eating babies.
ch00f@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The real debate is with figs.
raynethackery@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No matter how hard you try, in this industrialized world, some animal has been harmed by your activities. So, is true veganism even possible, in a practical rather than philosophical sense?
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
ITT: Honey-eating vegans getting ethically roasted by non-vegans.
Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The bees consent! Veganism is about consent! If a cow could say “Yeah, please take my milk” it would be vegan!
Theoretically domestic sheep wool is also vegan because theyll overheat and die if we dont shave them, and thus are probably pretty happy when we do and dont care what happens with it afterwards, but i dont think vegans are ready for that convo
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
vegans will always argue with everyone, especially themselves, forever and ever, amen
If there’s any animal that profits from a partnership with humans, it’s bees.
And rats. Never forget the rats.
Stolas@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Vegans fight amongst themselves all the time, and plenty of them have different rules.
For example, veganism doesn’t extend just towards diet but animal products overall. A lot of people will only focus on the diet or certain animal products such as leather though.
Really wish people would just agree to do whatever they can, anything helps.
irate944@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
It feels like there’s a whole debate about honey I’m unaware of, but isn’t the point of veganism avoiding anything made by animals? If yes, why is honey an exception?
AmyAye@nord.pub 2 weeks ago
I thought Vegans cpuld consume animal things if its done willingly.
Like if a cow walked up and said “Please gopd vegan, butxher me, it is my purpose,” they could totally make.and eat burgers from said cow.
That said, bee vomit feels like it sort of fall into that category.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I avoid honey becuase european honey bees are an invasive species, devastating populations of native bees and threatening their existence. We are not the same.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
They work for each other, Morty!
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I chose a whole food plant based diet for health reasons, and honey just isn’t good for my body.
I chose to plant pollinator friendly plants in my yard because I think bees are cool and I love watching them do their thing.
Canis_76@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
Vegans are unwilling to come to terms with the fact that they aren’t special. Taking honey is fine. Bees aren’t going anywhere any time soon. You know what? Taking honey had no downside for society. There is sooo much other stuff to worry about. Have you heard about our Lord’s, and Savior: Corpse Bees! An obscene amount in cemeteries, and grave yards. Can’t wait for some for you to get offended. Yes, the journey of most animals/insects is tragic. I like having the ability to travel cost to coast in hours on a full stomach. Until my belly aches.
brownsugga@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ah, the spirited and rational debate of intelligent human beings
RedEyeFlightControl@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
OwOarchist@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
The fun part is that this doesn’t even tell me which side of the honey debate you’re on.
ccunning@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not a vegan but I am surprised to learn there is a debate amongst vegans about honey.
9point6@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not at all, vegan as a personal trait is a bit of a broad church these days.
There’s the people that are mostly motivated by the not-killing-animals thing
Then there’s the ones doing it predominantly for environmental reasons
Then you’ve got the ones doing it for various health reasons
Then you’ve got people doing it predominantly for cost reasons (fewer here, given vegan is still treated as a luxury aspect in a lot of food categories)
Those groups do not have to overlap in views at all. It’s entirely expected for there to be disagreement and purity test drama given that IMO
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Honey is an animal byproduct, so technically it is non-vegan, but I think that’s kind of pedantic because the bees (ideally) aren’t harmed by the apiaries, and the relationships is more of symbiosis rather than exploitation.
I’ve tried explaining this to vegans and they get really hostile about how apiaries are bee slavery and we need to abolish all forms of subjugation and exploitation, and that I’m a colonialist pig for not seeing it that way.
They also talk about some of the problems with large-scale apiary practices. But those problems are very much known within beekeeping communities, and the average small-time beekeeper is as upset as any vegan about giant corporate monocultures spreading parasites and diseases.
The beekeepers are also very active in trying to solve that problem by regulating large-scale apiary practices, monitoring bee colonies, medicating, funding (and participating in) research, etc… All stuff that most vegans couldn’t be bothered to do.
It’s a bit like being against backyard chickens because Tyson and Perdue are an evil industrial ag duopoly.
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve known people who called themselves vegan and still ate fish, there are basically no rules
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
yeah the fda classifies it as a meat product.
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
There is far more debate about veganism within veganism than there is outside of veganism.
stickyprimer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Again, can’t tell if that’s because you think it’s an insignificant issue, or if you think the answer is obvious, and if so which answer you think that is. Are you being funny on purpose? If so bravo.
Dojan@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
There are a lot of debates. Vegan as a diet vs. lifestyle for example.
Some call themselves vegan when they have a plant-based diet, some insist that it’s a lifestyle and extend beyond just diet, into other aspects of life. Some are pro pets, others are against keeping animals at all.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I did assume vegans would be majority against honey consumption.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hah! It’s roughly 50-50 but even the 50% that doesn’t mind honey would usually buy some sort of syrup. It’s usually about it being an Ingredient.
Some otherwise vegan sweets are coated in super thin bee’s wax, so they don’t stick together. Many don’t mind, especially if the alternative is wrapping them in plastic.
Gladaed@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
The right side
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you can make both sides of an issue think you’re on their side, you win both of their support.