[Fleecewife]

Wonder if vegans have a problem with us keeping (working) bees for honey and also pollinating their plants? 

They do.  They believe that there are plenty of pollinating insects doing their thing without human intervention, and that farming bees for honey is morally wrong.

Actually I agree with that.  I have never kept hive bees and I have never collected any honey.  I do eat it though after others have collected it     The real reason for that is that for most of my life honey bees have given me the creeps, although I have taught myself to love them now.  Instead of keeping captive bees, we provide an environment where wild bees can prosper.
When I posed this question somewhereorother I was told that vegans are quite happy to keep hive bees because what they are doing is their natural behaviour.  I don't remember there being a comment on the stealing on their honey and replacing it with man-made stuff.

[SallyintNorth]

I'm no expert in honey bee-keeping, but i understand that it is highly interventional.  Beef cattle have a much easier life  

I joined the local Bee Club when i got an allotment, thinking I'd need the bees for pollination.  I learned in one evening that it is complex, time-consuming and a commitment, that bees travel up to 3km from the hive, and that the secretary of the local Bee Club had 50,000 bees within 3km of my allotment - so I never bothered to go again, and I never got my own bees!  lol

[harmony]

Wonder if vegans have a problem with us keeping (working) bees for honey and also pollinating their plants? 

They do.  They believe that there are plenty of pollinating insects doing their thing without human intervention, and that farming bees for honey is morally wrong.

Actually I agree with that.  I have never kept hive bees and I have never collected any honey.  I do eat it though after others have collected it     The real reason for that is that for most of my life honey bees have given me the creeps, although I have taught myself to love them now.  Instead of keeping captive bees, we provide an environment where wild bees can prosper.
When I posed this question somewhereorother I was told that vegans are quite happy to keep hive bees because what they are doing is their natural behaviour.  I don't remember there being a comment on the stealing on their honey and replacing it with man-made stuff.

I don't think you can describe honey bees as captive! There are beekeepers who don't take honey from their hives and don't practise swarm control. Unfortunately there are not many wild honey bees and the vast majority of the honey bee population survives because of beekeepers.

[harmony]

I'm no expert in honey bee-keeping, but i understand that it is highly interventional.  Beef cattle have a much easier life  

I joined the local Bee Club when i got an allotment, thinking I'd need the bees for pollination.  I learned in one evening that it is complex, time-consuming and a commitment, that bees travel up to 3km from the hive, and that the secretary of the local Bee Club had 50,000 bees within 3km of my allotment - so I never bothered to go again, and I never got my own bees!  lol

I wouldn't describe beekeeping as highly interventional or agree honey bees have a harder life than a beef cow. I spend far less time with my bees than my pigs, sheep or horses. Yes, some times of the year they are more work than at other times but that can be said about other livestock. Any livestock is a commitment. They travel up to three miles from their hive not 3km and 50,000 bees represents just one hive at peak time and not all those will be flying bees. The beauty of honey bees is that they visit a broader selection of flowers/crops than other bee types so are super pollinators.

[Fleecewife]

Wonder if vegans have a problem with us keeping (working) bees for honey and also pollinating their plants? 

They do.  They believe that there are plenty of pollinating insects doing their thing without human intervention, and that farming bees for honey is morally wrong.

Actually I agree with that.  I have never kept hive bees and I have never collected any honey.  I do eat it though after others have collected it     The real reason for that is that for most of my life honey bees have given me the creeps, although I have taught myself to love them now.  Instead of keeping captive bees, we provide an environment where wild bees can prosper.
When I posed this question somewhereorother I was told that vegans are quite happy to keep hive bees because what they are doing is their natural behaviour.  I don't remember there being a comment on the stealing on their honey and replacing it with man-made stuff.

I don't think you can describe honey bees as captive! There are beekeepers who don't take honey from their hives and don't practise swarm control. Unfortunately there are not many wild honey bees and the vast majority of the honey bee population survives because of beekeepers.

There are a few wild honey bees, but the bees I support are the non-hive types, like mason bees, bumble bees, solitary bees, etc.  From the point of view of pollination, these bees are way ahead of honey bees in the numbers of flowers they can pollinate each - the honey bee advantage seems to be in their greater numbers locally where they are kept in hives, as long as their hives are moved to be near the crops.  So keeping hive bees is purely for them to be exploited for their honey and to make it convenient to crop it.  See how hard it is for the few populations of indigenous peoples who live in the wild, say in the Jungles of Borneo, or the Amazon forest, to collect honey from wild bees, nesting halfway up a jungle giant, and well able to defend their honey. No wonder bees were domesticated.
However, honey bees are not essential to the pollination of our food crops, as long as we have healthy populations of wild bees, butterflies, flies, hoverflies, (wind), and in some countries, fruit bats and humming birds.




ps - does anyone else find it annoying that whenever you type Amazon it is automatically set as a link to a certain large online company, as if the vast swathe of rain forest in South America is of no importance 


pps - it didn't do it that time!  I think I'm being watched 

[harmony]

[size=100%]However, honey bees are not essential to the pollination of our food crops, as long as we have healthy populations of wild bees, butterflies, flies, hoverflies, (wind), and in some countries, fruit bats and humming birds.[/size][/color]

Do we not have a declining number of wild bees and insects in general?

[Fleecewife]

[size=100%]However, honey bees are not essential to the pollination of our food crops, as long as we have healthy populations of wild bees, butterflies, flies, hoverflies, (wind), and in some countries, fruit bats and humming birds.[/size][/color]

Do we not have a declining number of wild bees and insects in general?

You know the answer to that of course, our populations of the insects etc I mentioned are not healthy.  The solution to that is wound up in many other issues such as Climate Change, the use of noxious chemicals in agriculture, changes in agricultural practices, the covering of previously bare soil with concrete and asphalt, the obsession with keeping gardens and roadsides 'tidy', even parasites and diseases of captive bees spreading to their wild cousins.  These issues apply to honey bees as well as wild pollinators.
Are you meaning that it's perfectly fine to replace our wild insect pollinator populations with honey bees?  I don't really see your point. 

[harmony]

My point was that we don't have a healthy population of bees and insects. Nor are there many wild honey bee colonies, so "captive" honey bees are important to pollination and no I wouldn't suggest our non captive insects are replaced by honey bees.

[Steph Hen]

The most 'pure' vegans believe we should exploit animals at all. They should not be eaten, killed, kept or used. No horse riding or pets or fishing. No honey, no leather jackets, Ivory piano keys, etc, etc.  What to do with the animals we have just now; stop breeding any more and allow these ones to live out their natural lives until it's unethical.

Whatever I think of these ideals, I'm still pretty impressed by the determination of these people to change their lives for their good intentions.

[harmony]

Whatever I think of these ideals, I'm still pretty impressed by the determination of these people to change their lives for their good intentions.

It's their determination to change everyone else's lives to live by  their "good intentions" that those with a different set of good intentions struggle with.

[arobwk]

Year 2070: 

"Ok team, put your harnesses on, we have 2 acres to plough today."
"Excuse me plough-person, but have you done the horsepower/"manpower" conversion calculation as I seem to think we could do with 50 of us for 2 acres per day rather than just us 4 !"
"Look, you all decided to not exploit animals in any way and to protect the environment and now there are no animals and, despite all our efforts on the CO2 front, the weather forecast says it's today or else.  So are you ready ... ?"
"What about the worms ?"
"... Pull"

[messyhoose]

crikey there has been a real explosion of anti veganism this year- when all the corporate groups are falling over themselves to offer vegan alternatives to their meat norms! Sorry- but environmentalistsn and ethnologists all concur with a rising human population that a non animal diet is both sustainable and ethical. Humans have gone well beyond the hunter gatherer- indeed more of the population has nothing whatsoever to do with the production of the foods they rely on. This is not natural. So dont condone veganism for being as such- until you get omnivores to be more in tune with their food sources do not ridicule vegans for being opposed to it. Veganism is not a threat to the planet, humans and their capacity to embrace unnatural processes, and be in denial of natural processes- are.

[harmony]

crikey there has been a real explosion of anti veganism this year- when all the corporate groups are falling over themselves to offer vegan alternatives to their meat norms! Sorry- but environmentalistsn and ethnologists all concur with a rising human population that a non animal diet is both sustainable and ethical. Humans have gone well beyond the hunter gatherer- indeed more of the population has nothing whatsoever to do with the production of the foods they rely on. This is not natural. So dont condone veganism for being as such- until you get omnivores to be more in tune with their food sources do not ridicule vegans for being opposed to it. Veganism is not a threat to the planet, humans and their capacity to embrace unnatural processes, and be in denial of natural processes- are.

Crikey who's condoning and being anti anything? Has there been a rise in anti veganism or a rise in social/media coverage about the issue? I raise my own meat but I don't eat meat every day. Data shows that lots of people eat less meat for health and cost reasons and that trend is likely to continue.  Meat used to be a luxury. People who eat meat don't tell other people they have to in the same way some vegans/vegetarians push their ideals. Putting it another way is it more acceptable to be an anti meat eater than an anti vegan/vegetarian because some of the anti meat eaters are pretty extreme in their views and actions?

[arobwk]

crikey there has been a real explosion of anti veganism this year- when all the corporate groups are falling over themselves to offer vegan alternatives to their meat norms! Sorry- but environmentalistsn and ethnologists all concur with a rising human population that a non animal diet is both sustainable and ethical. Humans have gone well beyond the hunter gatherer- indeed more of the population has nothing whatsoever to do with the production of the foods they rely on. This is not natural. So dont condone veganism for being as such- until you get omnivores to be more in tune with their food sources do not ridicule vegans for being opposed to it. Veganism is not a threat to the planet, humans and their capacity to embrace unnatural processes, and be in denial of natural processes- are.

[member=174828]messyhoose[/member] - I was most interested by your starter remark about "explosion of anti-veganism this year".  I had genuinely not realized there was such a reaction to recent "advertising" of a vegan diet - could you offer examples you've come across please (leaving aside forum members remarks so far) ?  I would really be interested in your analysis.

However, my tongue-in-cheek scenario at Reply #26 (which I could have done better, but won't bother to amend) does, I believe, point to a part of the problem.   The world might well be able to sustain ever growing billions of people on a vegetable diet, but not without mechanical or draught animal assistance:  without productive multipliers (draught animals/tractors), I suspect the world's population cannot/could not be sustained by human labour alone.
And then, if a sheep (for example) will prosper on land where a field of wheat would fail, how best to use that land to feed the ever growing number of humans across the world. It is just so obvious to me. 
As some other omnivorous TAS members and I have already "admitted to", we are making a measured move away from a meat-intensive diet, but unlikely to ever go fully vegetarian and even less likely to go vegan.  I believe I am safe in saying that veganism is not the way to save the world on the feeding front.

Hopefully future food production methods will still be productive enough to continue to allow personal choices - omni', veggie, vegan.

[messyhoose]

arobwk- no my comment was entirely directed at the coarse comments made by subscribers on here. No- i have not seen anti veganism in the media, as i say every business this year (and we are not even past the first month yet!) seems to tripping over itself to get on the vegan bandwagon. I thought this would happen last year but that was the year of Flexitarianism- now that has gone a step further this year. I have respect for someone who hunts and kills their own food and none for a meat eater who puts their fingers in their ears about the "death issue" and buys their meat in plastic wrap. Some points mentioned by others here: yes vegans are anti honey production (bees fed sugar water so we get the honey) Yes they now realise almond milk production results in the death of bees on a huge scale- so decisions have to be made on the best alt to dairy that does not have an impact on another animal. Yes vegans did rely on plastics as an alt to leather in the past- but there are now banana and mushroom fibre alts that are more environ friendly (and remember leather production uses loads of water and chemicals too so although it might be considered "natural" it is not without a negative environ impact.)| Meat eaters are as bad at their (mis)use of plastics as vegans- it is a global not diet specific problem. All vegans i know are environmentally aware too so they are constantly asking q's about the content of their food choices (eg a lot of vegan stuff had palm oil in- so now those products are being boycotted.....its a never ending question) There is no perfect solution to all the ills human kind has caused over the centuries (and lets face it mostly in the last 200 years). Re: the question- "what do vegans think will happen to all the animals"...well its the same issue with those of us wanting to see an end to horse racing- the pro racers say "but if racing is banned what will happen to all the horses?". The answer is the same. For the short term animals would be taken into sanctuaries to live out their natural lives. NO MORE DOMESTICATED ANIMALS WOULD BE BRED FROM. So after these animals have died of illness or old age there would be no more farm animals, no more horses to be concerned about. Vegans would rather have a world with no domestic animals than a world where animals are ill treated (or for a vegan- exploited in any way). I have lived my life with pets, rescuing animals (and not breeding them) and could not imagine life without them. Thats why vegans dont like me. But i am vegan- why? because i am not prepared to kill an animal to feed myself (so why should i expect someone else to do it for me) and there are so many things wrong with modern intensive livestock farming that i am not prepared to support it. When WWOOFing i drank milk and ate eggs from the animals i cared for. I know we cant all rear our own animals/ grow our own food but humans in general totally forget an animal has lost its life to feed them- it makes me angry when i see people throw meat in the bin- how dare they! I am not anti meat eating per sei, i am anti the alien way this world has turned food production into something corrupt and unsustainable ( and i include farming of the worlds vegetables in that statement too).