Honey

Best friend's a vegan who raises bees. He doesn't clip wings or use smoke. From what I gather he basically just maintains their boxes, feeds them sugar when it's too cold for em, and collects honey when it's time. Someone is about to come along and say "he's not a vegan. Sounds like a vegetarian" and then I'm going to think "sounds like you're gatekeeping a lifestyle like it's a religion, and not even all vegans who don't use honey agree on whether or not a vegan can use honey" but I won't, because I don't wanna get wrapped up in the nonsense.

But either way, yes, some vegans do use honey. And some, like that theoretical commenter, don't eat anything that casts a shadow.

don't eat anything that casts a shadow

Anyone who doesn't exclusively survive on naturally dried up lichen ain't no real vegan in my book!
- Hmm... Some lichen make use of orobatid mite labour in order to disperse the cells of their photobionts. Are those still ok?
  
  That's why I specified naturally dried up. The mites will have moved to greener pastures, I mean lichens.
Personally I’m not sure the gate keeping you’re observing is all that much of an issue. I think it’s useful to remember many vegans are also public advocates for veganism. It’s important to them that people generally know what they mean when they advocate for veganism.

However, the definition of all words are always in flux. It’s not uncommon to see people call themselves vegan when a more apt description of their lifestyle would be plant based, flexitarian, vegetarian, etc. As such, I think edge cases like your friend take on an outsized importance that goes beyond the morality of your friend eating honey.

Basically, the goal may not be the social exclusion of your friend which is what I think is usually the problematic aspect of gatekeeping.
Beekeeping family here: who the fuck clips bee wings?
- Iunno, never personally seen it. Just heard about it online when I first started looking into beekeeping (which I ultimately did not take up).
  
  Still interested in doing it (the keeping not the clipping), if you have any advice on getting started for someone with like 18 dollars between paydays. Lol
  
  I'll say many cities have a club that rents out supplies or even has club hives you can use to get started. Also, I don't live in a huge city and I've seen used hives and frames for sale more than I thought I would, so it's worth keeping an eye out for those as well.
- People who don't understand bees and think that the queen is ruling the hive -- if the queen can't swarm then they're going to dispose of her and raise a new one. All you're doing is weakening the hive without actually preventing it from swarming. You might even kill it off.
  
  You let them swarm, you let them get their rocks on, and you also have a nice property ready for them to settle back into.
  
  I read that in Kerrigan's voice.
- Takes forever to find the flight feathers on the little guys and it's very intricate work.
also - does this distinction matter? Is someone who runs 100m dash vs an ultra marathon runner both runners? When I run for the bus I'm also running. Sonic the Hedgehog also runs. They have distinctions in context that make sense - but they are all running.
not even all vegans who don't use honey agree on whether or not a vegan can use honey

Exactly this, veganism is ethical choice, and ethics is not science. You can't 'prove' that something is acceptable, nor vice versa. There are guidelines and discussions but that's pretty much it.

So this is really not about whether bees are animals or not.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with my landlord harvesting my vomit as rent.

"I'm eating it, I promise it's not a sex thing."

If my bank accepted vomit as mortgage payments, they could smack my ass and call me bulimic, I don't care what y'all do with my vomit, let's talk about pool house options and a second car.

I'd be cool with creaming their coffee twice a week if it meant I got my house for no money.
Idk....how much vomit?
Not just vomit but a snowball train of vomit.
I don't think many would accept their gardens being pilfered either, though they might be more accepting if that's how they paid rent.

Well landlords are the badguys so...

What if the hives are rent controlled?
- Sounds spooked with extra steps

Couple of reasons. One, honey is made not from local pollinators but from European honey bees. Two, European honey bees are really good at producing honey, which means they're more efficient at removing pollen and nectar from flowers, denying food for native pollinators. Three, while only a few bees are directly harmed during honey harvesting, the need for their honey to be harvested means that they've been bred to make big, uniform honeycombs and a glut of excess honey. This makes them more susceptible to diseases, even before you factor in the monoculture nature of their existence.

Essentially, it's not that eating honey is harmful to bees. It's that the creation of honey at scale is cruel both to the bees producing the honey and the native pollinators who get pushed out by them. We (my household) do have honey on occasion, but only from local, small scale honey producers.

Here in Brazil we have Meliponiculture, farming honey from native stingless bees.
- Wow, that's interesting! Does the honey differ from the honey bee one?
  
  Depends on the species, but in general the honeys have variation in the nutrients, some considered even more medicinal than that of European Honey Bees.
  They usually also have more water content, so unlike "regular" honey, they can more easily spoil.
- So jealous.
Do you think there are no vegans in Europe?
- Probably yeah. But also the European honeybee is not the only European bee nor pollinator so the argument holds true to some extent.
  
  However I'm not convinced the impact is worse than the monocultures which makes up the majority of our calorie intake. Thousands of hectares of nothing but beets or corn probably does more for killing insect diversity than a handful of beehives, but what do I know.

So my wife went vegan for a bit and the logic is basically any living thing we take advantage of or make their lives more of a labor. So eggs, honey, milk aren't vegan because companies put those animals in situations they normally wouldn't be in in the wild to take advantage and harvest products from them.

Yeah, some vegans draw the line at the animal kingdom. (Plants, algae, mushrooms - these are all living things as well, but one has to eat something.) Some vegans I know do eat honey though. It depends on what feels like animal exploitation to the person.
Bees are a symbol of labour. You couldn't make them work harder if you tried. European honey bees collect far more nectar than they will ever eat, it's like they're planning for fimbulwinter

So what exactly is the problem with using honey?
- Bro you're barking up the wrong tree. I was providing information to a question. Regardless of your stance, the statement I made still stands. Talk to a vegan, that's their belief. I'm not even vegan.
Can't eat bread or drink alcohol, because that'd be making yeast our slaves!
- Can't digest food. The only reason those trillions of living organisms in your gut microbiome are doing it is you're keeping them enslaved by being their sole food source. Way to practice monopolistic practices on a entirely isolated living ecosystem!
- my friend, do you think yeast are animals?

Eh, I doubt most people care about being vegan for the sake of being vegan, but as has been said, honey bees are bad for pollinators, so from a moral viewpoint, you get to the same conclusion.

Ultimately, though, honey isn't hard to give up. Certainly nothing that I felt was worth contemplating whether it's grey area or not.
At best, it's annoying, because the weirdest products will have honey added. One time, I accidentally bought pickles with honey, and they were fucking disgusting.

honey bees are bad for pollinators

Hm? What do you mean?

From this paper:

A. mellifera appears to be the most important, single species of pollinator across the natural systems studied, owing to its wide distribution, generalist foraging behaviour and competence as a pollinator.

This is a genuine question btw.
- I read an article on this a while back that made me refrain from actually getting bees. I can’t find it right now, but the gist is that domesticated honeybees will compete with a lot of other pollinators (mainly solitary bees) over the exact same food sources.
  
  However, the honeybees have a gigantic advantage in being supervised, housed and generally looked after by the apiary. Which will also employ methods to stimulate hive-growth, driving the hives demand for food.
  
  That is something a solitary bee - or another pollinator depending on the same nutrition - cannot compete with, driving them away.
  
  So, in a nutshell: adding bees to a place already rich in honeybees? Whatever. Adding honeybees into a local ecosystem not having them rn? That will drastically lower biodiversity
- Most honey bees are of the European variety, they have a habit of displacing native bees when they are farmed
- I'm no biologist, but as for why they're bad for other pollinators, yeah, what @frosch@sh.itjust.works said sums it up quite well.
  
  I'd like to add that, to my understanding, they're actually relatively ineffective pollinators, too. They might do the highest quantity in total, but I'm guessing primarily because of how many honeybees there are.
  I believe, the paper you linked also observes this, at least they mention in the abstract:
  
  With respect to single-visit pollination effectiveness, A. mellifera did not differ from the average non-A. mellifera floral visitor, though it was generally less effective than the most effective non-A. mellifera visitor.
  
  ...but I don't understand the data. 🫠
  
  As for why this is the case, for one, honeybees are extremely effective at collecting pollen, with their little leg pockets, which reduces the amount of pollen a flower has to offer.
  
  But particularly when they're introduced into foreign ecosystems, pollinators that are specialized for local plants get displaced.
  This may mean just a reduction of pollination effectiveness, or it could mean that the honeybees turn into "pollen thieves", i.e. they collect pollen without pollinating the plant.
  Here's a paper, which unfortunately no one may read, but the abstract describes such a case quite well: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20583711/

One of my best friends is vegan. They won't use anything that comes from animals. Nothing. That includes wool, even though the sheep is harmed in the process. They're absolutely opposed to any animal products or bi-products.

even though the sheep is harmed in the process

This is such a funny typo
- I mean it’s accurate because wool shearers are often rushed with the sheep, hurting them to meet the quota of the day.
- The dark vegan. Eats only food that causes as much suffering as possible.
  
  It’s more accurate to say carnivore cannibal.
so they're vegan
- So honey is not a grey area, it's not for human consumption according to vegan values.
  
  Pretty much since it's animal-derived

I don't think comparing beekeeping to landlordism makes it sound very ethical at all

As long as we canot ask them, if it's ok if we take their honey (consent), it's not vegan. For an counter example, it's fairly easy to get consent from a dog to touch them. Most people are able to tell if they are fine or not.

Same reasoning like in fish and christianity.

I find vegan intellect fascinating. I love hearing their responses to my epistomology. They all make it up as they go along. It's very similar to religious beliefs in the way it is personal. Each has their own set beliefs on where to draw the line of what is vegan and what is not.

My personal understanding of the world is that plants aren't so different from animals that they can be classified separately from other food sources. For example, how much different is r-selected reproduction from a fruiting plant. Plants react differently to different colors of light and so do we.

It helps to understand the goal of a vegan. The extent to which we are tied to every living thing on Earth means that many vegans have set impossible goals.

Just fascinating.

I've always wondered if vegetables from a farm that uses horse-drawn tills instead of tractors would be vegan... It's a real question, but everyone I ask thinks that I'm trolling.
- Or animal manure, or pesticides
- I'd say no because horses can't consent to being used for this. Horse riding is generally not considered vegan either
- Each vegan will have their own answer. If you are truly curious, and a vegan is sharing their mindset with you, ask them.
- Here's my weird question: if faux leather is plastic and someone is vegan for environmental reasons, would leather be preferable? What if it's a byproduct and would otherwise be trashed? These are things I think about as someone who tries to reduce my impact on the environment as much as I feasibly can in a capitalist society.
  
  Depends on the faux leather. There absolutely are alternatives to leather that are less environmentally taxing than leather. Leather needs to be cured, for example, and the entire leather production process is very water-intensive and involves a lot of nasty chemicals. So apart from using a dead animal's skin to wear, it's also abysmal for the environment.
  
  You're right about the leather processing. I didn't consider that.
  
  I heard there's a new mushroom-based leather alternative that will hopefully get traction.
- If insects are animals then are vegans getting all of their food from 100% organic gardens that grow in a cooperative manner?
- Oooooooh, even using tractors could be considered non-vegan, if they're powered by fossil fuels, then they're powered from the remains of dinosaurs, which were very much animals
I mean I think it can be boiled down pretty simply: cause the least harm to living things that you can personally manage, according to your definition of harm. Having impossible goals isn't necessarily a bad thing. If your impossible goal is to make a billion dollars ethically, and you get to 50 million being 95% ethical, you could still consider that a win, even though you didn't reach your impossible goal.

Even the simple goal of "always being a good person 100% of the time" is probably impossible to achieve over an entire lifetime while meeting every person's definition of it. That doesn't mean it's useless for someone to strive for that within their definition of "good person".

In fact I'd say the vast majority of meaningful, non trivial goals could be considered "impossible".
ethical vegans (and not people who eat plant-based for nutritional reasons, and often get conflated with people doing it for ethics reasons) generally agree on one very simple rule:

To reduce, as much as possible, the suffering inflicted upon animals.

That's it.

Where that line is drawn of course depends on your personal circumstances. Some people require life-saving medicine that includes animal products, and are generally still considered vegan.

I'd like to see what about this confuses you and your epistomology [sic, and that word doesn't mean what you think it means]
- I am not confused. I am curious and fascinated on how people come to their conclusions. I know exactly what epistomology means. I have used it for conversations with many vegans about their choices as well as on other personally held beliefs. I could be a lot better at it but it has helped me show that I am curious and respectful.
  
  I'm curious, how do you use a branch of philosophy, that's concerned with the abstract theory of knowledge and the limits of human reasoning, in conversations?
  
  it's epistemology, btw
  
  Thank you for the correction. It can be applied in the Socratic method. I ask questions to understand someone's position and continue into how they came to those conclusions. At no point do I pressure for answers though. The idea is just to keep the person talking so you can understand their poimt of view to the best of your ability. It has a side effect of healthy personal reflection for all parties involved.
  
  Alright, fair enough. The Socratic method I know and can respect. I still wouldn't call it epistemology, but at least I know what you mean now c:
It's easy to judge down from that high horse of i-dont-care.

I'm no vegan (nor vegetarian), but the mission of an animal-rights-activist (that is also logically vegan in consequence) is surely to minimize any harm (s)he knows of. It's very simple. The limits of a dietary or fashin-trendy vegan is not so clear. As they usually don't really have spent a lot of time reflecting about it, but just follow some basic idea they've found somewhere. And maybe try to "adapt" it a lil.

Also your plant-argument was had like 30yrs ago already. Makes you sound super-intelligent, having figured out their major flaw all on your own :-)

The goal is not impossible. The goal is (or probably just should be) to minimize suffering if its existence is not unbeknownst to us. That's really a very basic logic that doesn't require much computing power.
- There was no tone of judgement in my response. I hope that's not what you got from it. I said I find it fascinating the way they think. This is not limited to vegans but it is easier to get someone to talk about this than other beliefs.
  
  I have no doubt that minimizing suffering is the higher goal. I meant that if their goal is to to use no food or product that involves using animals (within their personal definition) that they will find nothing in this world that is without impact from or to animals. That's what makes it impossible.
  
  True to that. Easier to talk with people about veganism than their religion :-)
  
  I get your sense of logic, but it's inherently flawed. So you're saying, if there's no way to 100% an ethic, it's better to just totally skip it? Of course you can't 100% live in this world without somehow touching an animals life by some degree. But it's about what one CAN do. The more one knows about this world, the more one could avoid. Ignorance is bliss, the evil I don't know is the evil I must not fight. But the moment I get knowledge of unjust X, I can do my best do avoid unjust X to the best of my abilities. Not even judgin in, us just being flawed humans. If I do 99% of everything I know right, and just fucked up the 1%. Am I still a bad person and suck at my ethics?
  
  I was unaware that my message implied a 100% requirement. That part of the comment was meant to be about how I see them trying to define the line between what is vegan and what isn't. I see now how this is being interpreted and it is my fault for being unclear.
  
  Oh okay. Sure there are probably many vegans that don't even REALLY know their motivations and hence have problems making clear and thought out statements that doesn't really help their well meant cause.
- It's an all well and good philosophy, but i think it's just attempts to feel better about oneself. There's no reason you can't be satisfied with not eating meat and at least feel like you're doing your part, but NOO the dogma must be pushed onto everyone else.
  
  The truth is a lot of meat eaters simply don't care about farm animal suffering, so arguments don't even matter because if every single argument from a meat eater were to be undeniably refuted, many would still not be converts. So many of these vegans want to go the communist route and revolt. Does this seem like a healthy philosophy to you?
  
  It would start making sense to you, if you'd see the analogy in racism et al (unless of course you are one, then it won't). An animal-rights-activist-vegan sees it that way and hence has a hard time to "shut up" about it. Like you would when you'd enter some nazi-meeting. Can't just sit there, doing nothing, and thus invoking the feeling you're part of it.
  
  It's not vegans per se, it's those that are just vegans as a direcr consequence, not those that follow a dietary decision.
  
  Your analogy makes sense
  
  That means a lot, coming from the grammar-police 😁
  
  Muh communism
What a word salad. Your comment can be applied to anything because people are different lol. All my friends who are dads have different ideas on how to be a dad. Fascinating. It helps to understand the goal of a parent. All my friends with jobs define success in different ways. It’s like they’re all making it up as they go along. Fascinating. It helps to understand the goals of a worker.

It’s ok to set “impossible” goals if you view them as directions rather than destinations.

Fascinating huh?
- Yes, it is fascinating indeed, how applicable to many different actions and intentions that statement was. Thank you for pointing it out.
Reacting to stimuli like the colour of light is irrelevant. My phone camera would fall into the same category, then. A light switch reacts to getting pressed and turns on a light, it's reacting to a stimulus.

What matters is sentience, which plants cannot possess, since they don't have a central nervous system. And even if they did, a diet that includes meat takes more plants, since those animals have to be fed plants in order to raise them.

They all make it up as they go along. It's very similar to religious beliefs in the way it is personal. Each has their own set beliefs on where to draw the line of what is vegan and what is not

The extent to which we are tied to every living thing on Earth means that many vegans have set impossible goals.

Regarding these two, is this any different from human rights? Where people draw the line regarding slave labour, child labour, which type of humans they care about (considering racism, homophobia, trans phobia, ableism etc). I'm sure lots of people have impossible goals regarding human rights, but working to get as close to those as possible is still sensible.
- The response to light color does not stand on its own. That is merely one parallel from many. It is true plants do not have a nervous system like animals, but they do have similar responses to stimuli. Parallels can be drawn to sight, sound/touch and smell/taste.
  
  Sentience is another topic that is defined subjectively. From context it is clear you make a central nervous system a foundational requirement. I could also apply this to technology, so I would need clarification from you to understand what it means to you. I do not hold to a personal definition for sentience because I have found neither a universal nor scientific understanding of the idea.
  
  As for the last paragraph: yup.
  
  Again, all of these reactions to stimuli can be explained as direct, chemical reactions, not signals that get sent to a central unit, are processed, being "felt", and then being reacted to. There is no one thing or being in plants like the central nervous system of animals that is capable of feeling something.
  
  Regarding the topic of sentience, I propose looking at it like this:
  
  There's a range of definitions that is somewhere around it being the capacity to perceive, to be aware, to be/exist from ones own perspective. However you define it, a central nervous system or other type of similar central unit would have to be a requirement, because that is what would actually be sentient. You are your brain, your hand is just part of your body, if it was chopped off, it by itself is not sentient.
  
  And whatever vague definition of it you go with, there's two options: Either sentience is real, or it isn't. If it isn't real, literally nothing matters, gg. If it is real, non-human animals with central nervous systems, and therefore sentience and the capacity to suffer, deserve ethical consideration, and we should do what is reasonably possible to reduce their suffering and death.
  
  Since we don't know the answer to the existence of sentience, we should err on the side of caution. If we're wrong, and we're all as sentient as a rock, the inconvenience we'd have suffered in our efforts to protect fellow sentient-but-actually-not beings can't be felt by us, no harm done. If we're right, the suffering we'll have prevented, in both scale and intensity, is indescribable.
  
  However you define it, a central nervous system or other type of similar central unit would have to be a requirement, because that is what would actually be sentient
  
  Without CNS there would be something else sophisticated enough to show sentience that would have been sentient. So to me it looks like this is not really a requirement, albeit it's simpler to say that it is.
  
  As a side note, I think that given how human-centric humans are (which is to be expected, really) even if we were living with another sentient species on the same planet we would argue they are not sentient for whatever reason we could come up with, and change sentience definition accordingly
I feel so kindred with the way you see things. You're making an observation and you're curious about the "why" of everything. I feel people often read my similar interest in a subculture as critical. Kind of like how bluntness can be perceived as rude, I guess. Do you ever have a similar response happen to you?
- Just look at the other responses to my comments.
  
  In real life it can be better or worse. Some of the closest people in my life get immediately defensive. It's sometimes easier to talk with strangers. More often than not, I will find a passion point that is the limit of conversation. At those times I just listen as much as possible. How much I engage depends on how they rect to my questions.
Veganism has and always will be just dogma. I find it quite annoying how individuals can so freely push their moral philosophy onto others. Veganism should always be a personal philosophy.

Also, there are now many vegans (considered bottom-up vegans) taking the communist route and basically advocating for revolutions in order to cease animal food production.
- I have conversed with quite a few vegans and none of them have pushed their morals on others. Some of them have been very upfront about their veganism. I am wondering where you are that you see vegans being so revolutionary.
  
  When i speak of ones that push their moral philosophy on others (rather aggressively i might add), I'm talking about the vegans that walk into restaurants to cause a fuss. I'm talking about the ones that criticize and talk down on meat eaters for their habits. There are many who do practice veganism as a personal philosophy. I guess dogma always attracts "bad apples"
  
  Also, i never claimed all vegans were revolutionary. I'm specifically referring to "bottom-up vegans" who advocate for more aggressive and hands-on methods in preventing animal farming rather than waiting for government reforms akin to a revolution.
  
  Don't you feel that you just see it that way because you're on the opposing side on this? This sounds to me exactly the same as how a homophobe for example would describe gay rights activists.
  
  Just go through all the points you mentioned in this and your previous comment, and replace those scenarios with the issues of various types of bigotry and ethical issues like transphobia, racism, child labour, slave labour etc.
  
  Don't get hung up on how bad these are in comparison to each other, that's not the point. Just look at how they're all ethical issues where a group of sentient beings are being harmed, and what kind of advocacy you're in favour of to prevent that harm. And why you would see the one issue you might be on the side of the harm being carried out so differently.
  
  Your analogy makes perfect sense, and i can understand from a vegan point of view why they would advocate in such manners even though i don't agree on the equivalence of human rights issues and animal rights issues.

Bees produce honey. Chickens produce eggs. Can't eat eggs. Can't eat honey.

Idk I'm not a vegan either.

Chickens. Google what happens to male egg-laying chickens and you probably can figure out why it's not vegan.

Usually things aren't vegan due to the horrors of factory farming practices, even before any potential death occurs.
- I mean anything commercial comes out to be pretty inhumane. They cut off the queens bees wings in commercial honey harvesting.
  
  I guess bees aren't as animal as chickens are?
  
  They are, which is why honey isn't vegan, and you brought a very good argument for that yourself, namely that the industrial process behind it all tends to be quite brutal.
  
  I keep my own bees for honey and I have chickens for my eggs. I'm trying to cut off the industry from my life. Not that I'm vegan, the industry tends to remove a lot more from the end result than just the humanity.

It's not like that bees are being strapped down and milked. It's silly to not eat honey cause of veganism. If you're that vegan move to the woods cause every product or archive you use in life has involved an animal in some way.