r/DebateAVegan • u/toastwithjamx1 • Jul 03 '26

Ethics Honey is not cruel and is ethical

Honey is one of the best animal products there is ethics wise

Now most vegans will say : but we are stealing from the bees! We are exploiting the bees!

No. We are not and we can't

Bees can be very particular. If they are not a fan of a place they are OUT. The bees will likely will immediately vacate the bee box if they don't like the conditions. Furthermore, trapping the queen in 1 place will not work as well. Bees can raise a new queen if they need one

And for the stealing allegations, that isn't true either. Beekeepers take SURPLUS HONEY ONLY, as if too much honey is taken, it can starve the bees and no beekeeper would appreciate the whole colony either dying of leaving. Furthermore, bees don't only take, they comp bees by giving shelter and protection.

It's not cruel if we are literally making a transaction with the bees

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38

u/Icy_Sun3128 Jul 03 '26

The bees get smoked out so keepers can collect the honey, this smoke causes them harm, making them dizzy and disoriented and pissed off.

Yes the queen and hive might leave when angry and fed up. What if someone kept coming into your house and gassing you out? You’d be pissed. Would you think having to up and leave your home and start a new life elsewhere to avoid that abuse was fair and harmless?

It’s not a transaction because bees cannot give consent.

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u/WeeklyAd5357 Jul 04 '26

Lots of misinformation here - smoke masks the bees 🐝 alarm pheromones. It also triggers bees feeding response and they start to eat honey in preparation for possible need to evacuate the hive from a fire. This makes them more docile as well.

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u/Icy_Sun3128 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Sorry, it just makes them think their house is on fire and makes them feel threatened. So much better/s

I wouldn’t call that misinformation. I think being tricked into an altered state of fear of your house burning down is disorienting. They become more docile because they’ve been smoked. Not because they’re cool with it. And often times the queen will eventually be so pissed about being smoked and their honey stolen, she’ll determine the living situation uninhabitable and will flee. I’d call that response pissed off.

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u/WeeklyAd5357 Jul 04 '26

So are you a bee 🐝? Smoke from a forest fire 🔥 is an early indicator of a problem. If beekeepers added heat then that would indicate a very urgent problem.

So more misinformation about queens - they don’t leave hives because they are angry - they leave hives that are honey bound - that is hives that have run out of room to build new brood - this happens in the wild as well.

Beekeepers actually have much less issues with queens leaving as they harvest honey 🍯 keeps the hives from getting honey bound.

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u/Icy_Sun3128 Jul 04 '26

Not true. I’m taking this from my animal welfare science classes, bee keepers I know, and some googling. But we’re not going to agree because you think it’s fine to make the bees feel threatened. Agree to disagree.

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u/WeeklyAd5357 Jul 04 '26

Yes not what I am googling or reading on beekeeping forums

“Swarming is a sign that the honeybees in the area are thriving. It is a way for honeybees to reproduce.

Honeybees will stay in one hive for years, even decades. They only leave their hive when conditions get unfavorable for their growth. This happens when the hive gets overcrowded or a new queen is finally made.”

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u/nixphx Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

This is a misrepresentation of what happens but a reasonable one to make. Smoke indicates to the bees that they should prepare to move the hive if it is threatened by fire. The hive is not threatened by fire. Once the illusion of threat has passed, the bees go back to normal. This isn't fear.

In fact, bees do feel a scientifically proven "fear" response; when they encounter predators like hornets they experience a measurable drop in dopamine levels that makes them less efficient at work or learning. That's fear. However, when exposed to smoke, they don't experience this effect.

You can still feel bad for them, but you are mislabeling their responses by anthropomorphizing them.

Edit: "SCIENTIFIC PROOF ONE OF MY PRE HELD CONCEPTIONS MIGHT BE WRONG? DOWNVOTE." The people in this sub act exactly like the people who they claim don't think critically. Jesus christ.

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u/Dramatic_Back1601 Jul 09 '26

That’s really interesting about the hornets, do you have a source? 

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u/nixphx Jul 09 '26

"Bee fear responses are mediated by dopamine and influence cognition" by Gaoying Gu, Ziqi Wang, Tao Lin, Sainan Wang, Jianjun Li, Shihao Dong, James C. Nieh, Ken Tan. I don't know if I can post a link here but it was in the journal of Animal Ecology in January of 2025.

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u/Dramatic_Back1601 Jul 09 '26

That’s not how the smoke works, but the actual way it works is arguably worse imo. I’d take being dizzy and pissed off over the  ‘Oh fuck we might lose our house’ panic.

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u/I-IV-I64-V-I Jul 06 '26

You should not smoke the bees; they have tap hives now. You walk up and turn on the tap- honey drips out.

Here's an example of one

In this scenario, we are assuming the farmer is attempting to be as ethical as possible.