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I thought I knew a lot about bees.....thank you for the further education! We have hayfields and are always watching for precious bees but so few are seen now. We nurture milkweed patches and I’ve sown more clover in our fields......yes, we’re vegan! Thank you again for this piece on bees!
Yeah same here. I knew practically nothing about the industry. I'm glad I didn't pick a package of muesli from the store, even when I really wanted some but everything had honey in them :(
@Ian Lev Nah, you're just selfish. I don't really see the ethical concerns considering that we still exterminate ants and kill flies and they have comparable nervous systems, but the environmental impacts are degrading many wildlife habitats, and you should be aware of that whenever you make the active choice to buy honey.
@Ian LevWe all came here thinking just like you and we all changed our minds on the subject. You got to at least watch the video and give it a chance. When you just say things like "Vegans are mental, they know virtually nothing..." no adult will give a shit about it if you don't make your case with good arguments. If you watched the video and still think it's full of shit, please tell us why. We're all just like you, we just need an argument that makes sense. If you have these good arguments, please share. Or you can always keep beeing a baby and just cry about you needing your honey. Pussy move, but you choose how to live your life.
I had no idea about this.. I grew up having home made honey and saw how my granddad would care for his bees (he only had one box, not to sell, just for personal use) and I thought that was how everyone would care for the bees because he cared a lot about their well being.. thank you for this explanation, now I can see how bad honey can be and understand things that never crossed my mind! I mean, bee insemination?! People are insane!
I’ve been vegan for a month or so now and haven’t eaten honey in ages anyway but this really cleared up in my head why we don’t eat honey. I wish people would just be more open to learning about how their choices affect the world around them rather than just dismissing it and having negative connotations with the word vegan. So glad I made the change and I don’t think I’ll ever go back
You should read how bees get transported to almond farms. Thousands of bees die from doing this. Yes they get bread for honey but they are also getting bread because of the demand for almonds. Also look up the cashew industry you will be shocked!! Slave labour. I am mostly vegan but i do consume honey as maple syrup just isn't in my budget an honey is a lot cheeper and i try an not consume cashews because of the working conditions.
@@wisemage0 it is always important to just give your best. As most know, living 100% vegan is impossible and we can start by changing our behaviour with the biggest effect and continue deeper, getting closer to a more ethical lifestyle. Going vegan is fantastic for ethics, but it is not all. Yes, with a modern vegan diet (which for most people that includes almonds generally from California) you make a great positive step. Would it be better, from a vegan standpoint, to not support farms that rely on shipping bees across the counties every year: Yes. Should you eat yourself up for eating these nuts: No. Give your best, keep adding positive changes and keep moving forward in a speed that is sustainable for you :)
There is nothing wrong about eating honey you ignorant girl... nor there is nothing wrong eating animal products. Humans are omnivores but it doesn't mean you have to switch from one extreme to another just because some assholes kill bees.
I’m vegan and I still eat honey every now and then. But that will stop right now! I didn’t know the truth about the way the bees are treated and it is awful.
Honey bees are used for pollination so if you eat advocado, and many other fruit and vegetables, you are eating the product of farmed bees. I’m a vegan btw, so can I not eat Advocados now? I also used to own a honey business and the practices shown are just not done, at least not in NZ. For example: we dont want to feed the bees sugar in winter….its expensive to buy and even more expensive to get to the hives, which are often remote. Leaving honey on the hives is better for the bees and dramatically cheaper. We simply could not afford to kill the hives over winter. The pictures of hives being burned are almost certainly hives with proven varroa mite which legally have to be burned, destroying the hives and a lot of other expensive equipment. I’ve seen beekeepers cry doing this. This video has basically made me question a lot of the things Earthlings Ed has said about industries I dont know about.
Misinformation video at its finest tho. Caring for bugs and flies is put way too far, we might as well just stop eating anything, because farming causes a lot of damage as well. We need bees and honey farms in order to grow food effectively, without them we would have to cause massive damage to environment by polinating plants artificially using even more chemicals than we do now.
@@a.voice.for.animals I am a beekeeper and I know that this is not how bees are handled. For example it makes nö sense to kill a hive before winter. The food costs arround 20€ and a New colony costs 10 times that ammount. That is just one example of all the BS in this video. If you want proof, go and visit a beekeeper.
On the ecology side of it, experts say something along the lines of producing honey to "save the bees" is like farming chickens to save wild birds. Great video!
I am a new "bee" in veganism haha :) and there is a lot to learn . I am binge watching your videos. Just today I was wondering if honey is vegan ,and here is the answer! Thank you so much ,you inspired me to go vegan and help the planet ,our animal friends and also my own health . I am really thankfull ♡
Thank you for this. My sister was asking me about this very question and since I am new to veganism, I didn't know all the issues in the honey industry. This answers a lot of questions we both had.
I gave up honey once I became vegan simply cause I thought "honey is for bees" similar to "milk is for baby cows" but I had no idea what happened in the honey bee industry. I imagined a peaceful meadow and a thriving echo system much like they would want me to believe. Good video!
Yeah, I typically just avoided honey because I knew _other_ vegans did the same and figured they had done more research on the topic. It just wasn't something worth the hassle. But I'm so glad he made this video because what that _did_ do was lead to some awkward conversations with non-vegans asking me why I don't eat honey, and I didn't have any good answers.
This gives such a bad name to bee keepers. This is definitely accurate for industrial honey, but local honey is not at all made like this. Bees make more honey than they could possibly eat, and REAL beekeepers take little, leaving enough honey and plus some for the bees. They don’t poison their bees or mutilate their queens, they take care of the bees. Most beekeepers don’t use gas, as bees aren’t just outright aggressive. They can learn to trust you, and will. Its like having pet chickens and you happen to get eggs because that’s what they produce an excess of.
That still does not address the environmental concerns however. Bee farming is still contributing to the decline of many wild bee species and the decline of many wild plant species, degrading entire ecosystems.
Alex Miller Alex Miller Id be SHOCKED if independent bee keepers who care for one or two hives in their own backyard or property are making any of the significant dents on ecosystems actual mass production honey industries are making. Besides, native bee population support is a real thing that bee keepers and bee enthusiasts absolutely support. For example this non-profit encourages schools, organizations, and community farmers to sponsor native bee hives: thehoneybeeconservancy.org Many small bee keepers are simply caring for their hives because they want to and not for any particularly lucrative monetary gain (they aren’t usually interested in employing violent tactics used for exploiting and profiting off of bees), and those who care for native bee populations through non-profits like the honey bee conservancy do so TO support their local ecosystems.
@@owiwig5791 of course one bee keeper doesn't do anything but the added effect of thousands of independent beekeepers doing that adds up. Also bees are already threatened by the increasing use of pesticides so it doesn't take much else to speed up wild population decline.
Alex Miller it’s as if you can take the entire population of independent bee keepers from around the world and present that number without context for how few there are in any given area compared to the metric fudge-ton of industrial honey hives there are in these same regions to try justifying an argument against all forms of bee keeping even though I literally gave proof that not all forms of bee keeping are harmful to local ecosystems and the bees themselves. Also if wild/native bee populations are impacted by pesticides so are domestic honeybee populations in the areas they both reside in. Come to think of it, it’s ultimately as if the problem ISN’T independent bee keepers, but the companies and corporations that enable mass industrial honeybee farming and the foul agricultural practices that are contributing to animal cruelty, over usage of toxic pesticides, worker’s rights violations, and ecosystem damage.
humans are apex predators vegans kill billions of animals with crop farming earthling ed eats meat off camera and gets paid from world economic forum to spread disinfo propaganda humans are CARNIVORE by physiology
Also, on the bee intelligence thing - having taken linguistics, while some bees can communicate pollen sources in a dance akin to language, they have no word of "up" and never devised one. In an experiment, a nectar source was placed high up on a pole - workers relayed the location of the pole to the hive but when more workers were sent there, they just swarmed around the pole.
Couldn't that just be that hive or regional dialect. If it is akin to language they should have different dances for different regions. Maybe even a form of accent.
@@wownoyoudont861 There are different dances/movements for different bee species, so technically that is a thing. However, the broader issue is that despite being able to communicate displacement (information that is not in immediate proximity and in the immediate present time), their "language" is not open-ended enough to communicate novel details like a unique altitude.
Alexander no, honey and sugar are almost identical. The difference is refined glucose has only one type of sugar whereas honey and maple syrup have many. Plus the difference is miniscule and you get other sugars from fruit
@@Alexander03312 WRONG! There are worse sugars than table sugar. Pure fructose, is worse than glucose and fructose in table sugar, as you body has to process fructose into glucose. Fructose is well studied to be more damaging to the body than glucose.
sugar production is probably 10x worse for the environment what honey is. The reason you use different sweeteners is because of flavors. Once you reach wide scale production of a crop its bound to be bad for the environment mono cultures are not good for diversity.
I just found out that you came to visit my school last year and I can't believe I missed the opportunity to meet you! You helped completely change how I want to diet when I live on my own. Keep doing what you're doing!🌟
Wapiti I speculate that it is because they live with their parents/family and cannot afford to buy their own food and those who buy the food are not vegan and therefore will not buy them vegan food.. again, I'm speculating but there are many who are at the mercy of eating what is made available to them if they are unable to support themselves..
@@breathemetal76 True. Sadly many who have empathy for other creatures often forget to empathize with humans. Idk how many times I've seen comments made by other vegans putting down kids...children...for not being able to buy their own food. It's those vegans that give the rest of us a bad name. *not talking about Wapiti, how can I when Idk if they take what you said into consideration. I know I've made that comment " why wait, do it now," without knowledge of how the commenter lives.
Thanks so much for laying this out, Ed! This comes up a lot in my daily vegan travels and people can’t seem to compute that there can be exploitation and cruelty to bees in the same basic ways we do to agriculture animals. Also, side note, I don’t even like honey. Agave nectar is way better!
@@wisemage0 Ah i'm sorry, i meant in the way that taking bees' honey is like taking cows' milk in the sense that they produce it to feed themselves, and since some people (even some vegans sometimes) don't understand that for bees because they are insects.
There are noninvasive approaches for keeping bees as well. I don't feel bad about honey from Old Michael's backyard hive, he loves that box almost as much as his homemade wine. To me the issue doesn't seem to be the honey or collection in and of itself, but rather the industry surrounding it. I feel the same for many animal products. Almost all living things eat other living things. Most plants have structures that mirror nervous systems, and react to being harmed - Logically they should also have a right to exist. I don't think there is any escaping that. Ultimately we're also part of the natural environment, modern society is just not doing that great at adapting symbiotically with other species, save a select few.
This is wildly generalised ed. A friend of mine has a couple of hives. Of which he takes the upmost care. No bees a culled, no bees are harmed during honey harvest. His hives are caught not bought, It really does depend who you get your honey from. It's one of the few animal products that I believe if you get it from the right person you aren't harming the bees.
Even if the bees are treated well, that still leaves all the other issues (environmental, etc). I guess the statements are focused on industrial honey farming, which I'm sure the majority of all honey in supermarkets comes from.
me neither, it's such a heartbreaking thing... like pretty much anything else we do to animals :( every time I think I've seen it all, here comes something else...
By taking honey from them WE ARE of benefit to them, you gullible propaganda believing Vegan. If we didn't take it, they would fill the combs with honey(because they are honey making machines and don't stop), leaving no room for new brood. So it's a win win, dummy. We get tasty honey and they get to breed. Bee Farmers/Keepers are what literally saved Bees from decline, go educate yourself, fool. Vorroa mites are what caused Bee deaths and Bee Keepers/Farmer can treat that and kill them, again, SAVING the Bees. Left to their own devices, Bees get DECIMATED by Varroa mites, entire colonies die. By heating a harmless chemical to the Bees into the hives, they can kill hundreds and more Varroa mites, while not harming the Bees. Can nature do that? NO!
Being vegan, I never ate honey because I felt it wasn’t my food to take. However, I had no idea how unbalancing domestic bees are for the ecosystem and the way they are bred. This was very informative. Will definitely share!
In Harmony With Earth “vegan” bee keeper is an oxymoron. You can’t change the definition of veganism to fit your non-vegan lifestyle. idc how nice you are to the bees, if you’re using them for profit or personal pleasure then you’re not vegan. idk why people who wish to use others want to label themselves as part of a cause they don’t truly believe in.
So you won't eat processed pollen (honey, which DOESN'T hurt plants)... but you'll rip off the plant's reproductive organs and eat them raw? You won't allow bees to share the excess food they store up humanely... but you'll actively steal food from a helpless little baby bunny? How can you be so heartless and mean?
Bees are one of the very few animals which consent to be farmed - if your bees dont like your hive, they sod off. The keeper has to care for them - plant flowers, monitor for signs of disease, take only excess honey. What you're objecting to is factory farming - people having one hive at the bottom of the garden is good for your plants; and means we get a sweetner nither shipped halfway round the world nor derived from petrol
@@inharmonywithearth9982 yea I know there is lots of great beekeepers out there who take good care of their bees, keep doing what you do. I've wanted to beekeep myself and that's why I wanted more facts and opinions on it
thanks for this video. im a vegan and for a while i didnt eat honey at fist, but then thoughtt that honey wasnt unethical or unsustainable. after doing more research and also seeing this video, i wont be buying honey in the future. i do still have a jumbo jar of it, but im not going to throw it out or be hard on myself, ill use it. the goal is to keep growing as a person and we're imperfect, its okay to keep learning.
Agreed, throwing away the honey wouldn‘t help the bees. Last year I made my own „honey“: I cooked lion's-tooth flowers with sugar until it reached a honey-like texture. Turned out more liquid than intended, but works perfectly fine. Alternatively there are things like maple sirup, agave nectar and vegan honey one can buy.
Sorry but as a vegetarian and a beekeeper 95% of this total bullshit. Buy locally produced honey - I promise you nobody is out pouring gasoline on their beehives before winter 😂. What an utter load of crap.
I am a vegan for almost 6 years now. Back in my past took a class in beekeeping and kept bees for a season. I don't know about commercial bee production practices either here or in Europe. Just want to comment about a few things that Ed said and that are not happening in the smaller, local honey production hobbies and businesses in the USA. at 0:26 - he speaks about instrumental insemination; in nature, virgin queens go on mating flights. Her mating flights, across a few days, will result in collecting sperm from 10-25 drones. When a drone (male) bee inseminates a new queen (female) he soon dies because his endophallus breaks along with associated abdominal tissues that are ripped from the drone's body after sex. A portion of the endophallus remains inside the Queen. The male falls to the ground and soon dies from his few moments of sexual bliss. So while it seems harsh that bee breeders are crushing drones to inseminate new queens, the reality of nature, sadly, is about the same for drones. at 0:50 - swarming is said to be bad for business, which is true. It also can be bad for neighbors when new colony swarms take off and land to make a colony in someone's attic or walls. It is much better to stop the swarming at the hive of origin and it is the beekeeper's responsibility to prevent swarms from happening through correct practices that include destruction of the queen cells - this must be done at least 2 times per week to prevent swarming in the spring. (I was a bad beekeeper - my hive swarmed and my neighbors complained - putting a halt to my hobby. I relocated my hive to a friend with a small, local honey hobby.) at 1:03 - where Ed says that after the hives are harvested for honey, they are often culled for the winter because culling of hives is cheaper than feeding the hive through the winter months. I wasn't taught to do that - bees are in decline and a hive is a very precious team. I live in California and bees are easy to overwinter if you don't take every honey super. I was taught to just leave one for the bees and harvest the remaining supers which the bees have overproduced. Hive populations diminish naturally when cold weather comes and one honey super is usually sufficient to keep the hive well fed through the winter. Still, you need to check the hive every week to be sure they have food remaining. It is a practice to feed sugar water if the hive uses up the remaining honey super. Also, water is always made available because bees need the water. at 3:34 Ed speaks about competition between honey bees and native bees and other pollinators. I think in a completely non-agrarian area this is true. In my experience living in California, there are so many agricultural fields that there is an overabundance of flowering plants and I understand that farmers need honeybees for their plants to produce enough nuts and fruits for a successful harvest; wild pollinators have not been abundant enough to do a profitable job. Maybe if permaculture were a more universally practiced production method, where there are wild areas left between the production fields, then the wild bees could take care of the pollination needs for food production. We are not there yet and hives of honey bees are brought to the fields to boost nut and fruit production. I am also concerned about native wildflowers, plants and pollinators. I enjoy gardening and have made a plot of wildflowers and native California plants that will attract pollinators of all kinds at my current home. I notice many different species of wild bees, bumblebees and butterflies visiting and giving more color, movement and life to the area and that fills me with joy. I plan to convert more lawn areas (which the previous owner planted) to native species and home food production over time and as my budget allows, and talk with neighbors about the benefits of my native garden to advocate the benefits and to assist them with their conversions. Thank you Ed, for such an important work that you do.
@@lauratempestini5719 Yes! But it would go to the honeybees that made it. Beekeepers do it all the time in winter if a hive needs help. If you pour it into a shallow bowl and place it near a hive they will clean up every drop and stash it back in their hive.
DON'T feed random honey to bees! Only feed a hive the honey they produced. When you give them store bought honey, or honey that's not from them, they can get viruses which can kill the entire colonie. Just mix some sugar-water whith a 3/2 ratio (1.5 kg sugar, 1 l water), put it in a bowl with sticks so they don't drown and bam! Fed the bees without any harm
Hi Ed - Great video as always but would you be able to add the links for any references, stats and studies to the description section of the video? I always think it's important that everything should be cited.
Mostly is hear say. I'm a beekeeper and I've never had to use insemination and I've had the same beehives for about 3 years now. YES there are extreme capitalist beekeepers but you will rarelly find them selling local.
@@felathar1985 Most people do not buy local honey. Most people buy it from a grocery store and have no idea where it comes from, or buy it already in products. This type of honey is almost exclusively going to be from large scale producers who use every corner-cutting technique they can. Furthermore, your comment only addresses the bee abuse aspect of the video. All the other points about genetic bottle-necking, wild bee population destruction and wildflower decline are still relevant even to a small scale beekeeper like yourself.
@@velar123 wrong. it depends on the country. capitalist countries work like that, but in our country honey are rarely available in our groceries. our honey still comes from local farmers.
@@velar123 many of the small scale bee keepers actually keep local bee species in order to preserve them and helping them survive, actively fighting genetic bottlenecking. And I also know plenty of people that have wildflowers growing in their garden, often leaving parts basically unkept so the flowers can grow unobstructed. From what I've seen the people that keep bees keep them to help not only the bees but also try to preserve as much wildlife as possible in general, which includes plants as well
I'm not going to say no one does this. But I have bees and it's nothing like this lol. They are nice. And I try to help them and in return I take some honey for me. And I help them thru the winter.
Their presence will create a competition between the natural bees, a competition the natural bees can't win, damaging the surrounding environment and natural bee population.
@@danp2687 idk if you noticed but the world if far from natural. I pick up litter all the time. People are burning trash and destroying stuff all day. Beekeeping is a lesser evil. Assuming the beekeeper is not doing crazy stuff to the bees.
This owes more to ideology than anything factual. It's not my job to defend the commercial honey industry, but don't tar small-scale beekeepers with the same brush.
I’m just becoming a vegan and didn’t know about the bee cruelty. I have a bee and butterfly garden and we have lots of bees in the summer in the garden. We planted plants and flowers that we researched they would like. We get lots of butterflies too. We rescue some bees who are sleepy or drunk by placing them in the undergrowth so they’re safe until they wake up. It’s disgusting how non humans are treated. Since I changed to vegan my asthma has all but gone and I’ve lost weight. My rashes have gone I don’t cry or feel sad as much and I feel more awake.
This footage is all out of perspective. The guy drowning the hive had to take it out because his neighbor’s kids were getting stung repeatedly and they were killing other hives. I’ve seen the footage and he Waited months, requeened them, moved them, did EVERYTHING you can do to change the temperament of a hive before “culling” which isn’t even a term we use. The videos of the bees in the bags were of @thekillerbeeguy moving a swarm so large it was breaking a tree from a populated area to an unpopulated one and they shook all the bees out. I am a honeybee removal specialist and I run a rescue for bees. That’s my job. I literally save bees 24/7 365. Most beekeepers DO NOT kill off their hives to overwinter, they feed them and seal off the hive with insulation leaving a small enough exit for the bees to cleanse without losing crucial heat and moisture. If you want the truth? Vegans are hypocrites. Far more bees are killed during the pollenation of almonds, zucchini, squash, avocados and other stone fruits. They’re forklifted onto pallets of six hives and then lifted with a crane onto semis with hundreds of pallets belonging to multiple different beekeepers and covered with nets while they’re driven across the country and deposited in a strange place with very little nectar and other bees who may have mites or beetles right after a hard winter. Then the almonds are sprayed with fungicide which kills billions of bees. This is repeated every five weeks until all the crops are pollinated. Then the bees are taken to the Great Plains or back to their home and left alone to make honey until October or November. Replacing bees is $250 for a PACKAGE. That’s just a couple hundred bees and a queen. It’s far cheaper to feed the bees sugar syrup over the winter. whoever made this video is a propagandist and didn’t bother to check his sources whatsoever. SHAME ON YOU
This video is propaganda. Not to mention you should probably do a little digging on the almond industry before your holier than thou vegan attitude fully kicks in. You want to be part of the solution? Boycott almonds and other monoculture that NEED industrial beekeeping to survive. My advice? Start breaking for yourself and learn the truth by actually DOING SOMETHING.
This video is pure propaganda. If you're interested in actually learning more, there are literally millions of hours of beekeeping videos on RUclips. Please don't make assumptions based on 6 and a half minutes of biased information.
For the first couple months of being vegan I still ate honey, but then I saw the horror of the honey industry and immediately stopped consuming it. This videos has more information in it than all of the other videos about honey I’ve seen. Well done.
I've seen rainforest beeing burnt to make place for soya bean plantations. So, will you stop eating soya products now? Not all honey is produced in the same way exactly as soya products aren't produced in the same way.
@@aakesson1 You're not wrong, I prefer oat milk to soya, but sometimes get soya if it's cheaper. Personally I can live without honey, but if I was to buy it regularly I would do my research.
I love how most of your videos have captions for such a variety of languages. Makes it so much easier to spread the message to non-english speakers as this content isn't very popular or of high quality in many countries (such as in my case) - thanks to the captions I can share your videos with my family and am just so grateful for the impact that they're having
Thank you for posting this. I am on a plant based diet except for honey, and have looked for a very long time for detailed arguments against honey production and have never found anything like this through quick googles. Super helpful, I will be rethinking honey consumption going forward. :)
I'd appreciate sources in the description or a pinned comment. Not meant in a negative way. It's important to know where our food actually comes from whether we're vegan or not. I never thought to question honey. However, sources would be expected of any reporting and increase legitimacy.
Lol, this video contains so much BS. Here's one: Does it make financial sense to kill off a beehive instead of feeding them for winter? No it fucking does not. Here's the math: -Full size colony (easily 100-150 euros). -Feeding bees 20 kg of sugar 0.80 * 20 = 16 euros. Even if you triple that, it would be cheaper to feed them. On top of that, if you want to be able to harvest spring honey you need a strong colony coming out of winter. It also costs sugar to start up a new colony, so there's nothing saved. In other words, check your facts.
Yeah only took around 100 years to destroy bast amount of ecosystems because of dissonance cognitive and greed hope our generation when all baby boomers Politicians die out can make turn before we destroy ourselves
@@anulfolantigua6291 As Steve Jobs wisely said: "Death is nature's mechanism to get rid of the old and make way for the new" We milenials were cursed with being given a far worse planet than our parents and grand parents were given, but we were also very blessed with social media that helps us carry information and provide eye opening insights, so we have the capacity to change and make the world a better place. Correct the injustice done by previous generations.
@Amanley Load I do think not all things in the video are always true. Not all beekeepers kill their bees in winter for example. What does happen, however, is the prevention of swarming by killing off drones. That is also a way of trying to prevent the varroamite from spreading in your colony. That is another issue. The varroamite spreads in honey bee colonies quite easily which can then spread to solitary/wild bees. Another thing I find interesting about your response is that you say "most of the time the human ones feed their honey back to them to regain strength." To me this implies that the honey is ours, while it is the natural food for the bees, which they produced for themselves. You seem to not even argue for the fact that the bees produce too much and we just take the leftovers, which most people would. And to the point of the bees being killed because "Those bees was attacking children and suspected agressie african genetics.": wild bees, at least in the UK and Europe, (almost) never attack humans. Seems to me that this is another reason not to keep them.
This video doesn't have much appeal to anybody who isn't already Stanning Ed. If you send it to your family and friends they'll probably think you've been indoctrinated.
This video is pure propaganda. If you're interested in actually learning more, there are literally millions of hours of beekeeping videos on RUclips. Please don't make assumptions based on 6 and a half minutes of biased information.
I did know all that I must admit . My experience with honey keeping was different as my neighbour was bee keeper as small holder. He didnt do non of that.
usually a beekeeper prepares his colonies for winter (meaning to make sure they have enough food until next spring). its not common practice to kill a hive after summer. a beekeeper normally wants his colonies to survive and tries everything to reach that goal. they only need to be killed if there is a problem (infectious desease or them being overaggressive to a degree where they are dangerous)
@Amanley Load there is a few things i (a beekeeper myself) dont understand in the video. it is said it s cheaper to kill a hive than getting it ready for winter. i dont know prices all over the world, but here in middle europe, germany - i'd say its about 20 euros: bee feed (sirup or own honey or combo of both ) inclusive varroa winter medication - while a new colony is about 130-150 euros. i dont understand how he can say its cheaper to kill.... about 20 euros vs 150. maybe im missing something.
@@steffomatic its most likely really cheap when they do it on a wide scale. I'd imagine large companies probably get batches of them really cheap, considering insects are one of the easiest things to breed. Bees sold to hobbyist are so expensive because there's a chance the person buying them will never buy from that company again, since the person now has the ability to generate in theory "infinite bees". This is how I have two hives going, the first one swarmed and i collected them. This is purely speculation on my part but if bees really were that expensive the companies wouldn't just kill them.
@@devon12346 well , i cant say for sure how it is for all parts of the world, but here in germany and other european countries all fellow beekeepers i know, hobby beekeepers or commercial beekeepers with xxx colonies, would call it simply insanity to kill off a healthy hive instead of maintaining it and taking care of as good as possible - i cannot imagine it being cheaper to kill it here...(usually hobby beekeepers or commercial beekeepers multiply their colonies every year by creating own nucs, i do, too - and if a beekeeper wants to reduce, hes gonna sell some colonies - and if a beekeeper wants to expand, hes gonna buy some extra ones.prices are very similar and do not vary that much in general). Even commercial beekeepers need to buy new queens occasionally - and they also pay 20+ euros for one(or even 100 or more). i dont see them getting super extra conditions for getting batches - maybe 10-20% discount, maybe not . i dont know about china or other asian places for example. ive seen some footage from chinese mass production (honey) and i must say what i saw was disgusting and it should be boykotted - i condemn this , too. bottom line is - i do not understand some parts of the video, i do not agree on everything and i dont like how things are generalized way too much. (like all beekeepers cut/trim the wings of the queen, etc. etc. - nobody i know does that crap)
This is not all true, there are definitely some companies out there who put the bees first, they will only take the excess from the hive. I lived in a reputable Apiary and have seen it all. I think it strongly depends on whom and where you source your honey from
Presumably a lot of commercial food plants are pollinated by these artificialy managed and bred bees. Almonds in the US being a well known example. Hives are driven around the country on semitrailers to different farms. So I guess everyone, vegans and meat eaters alike should be asking questions on how our crops are pollinated. Honey is just the beginning. We need to have an education push on how our plant based food is farmed/pollinated too..I'm guilty of not always knowing when I buy groceries. I'm also vegan
You can take a honey from local small producers. Not all honey comes from commercial industry. In my town we have three beekeepers and they do not do to bees what is described in the video. Simple said, If I eat honey I do not need to be automatically supporter of these practices. The beekepers I know do not do anything from what is described in the video. This video is biased and what I am missing here is a common sense. You could make a video how bees will thrive without the work of beekeepers when we leave them alone. Thanks.
Where do they get the queen be to start their hive? And how do you ethical steal from someone? Bees make honey for bees not for us it is their food, it keeps them warm, and it protects them from predators why would you want to eat honey when you can easily eat maple syrup or something else! Would you like it if someone took your front door almost all your food if not all your food, and your ac/insulation on the walls?
One thing I never understood was why vegans fail to eat honey. I must admit, I always thought if anything, it was more helpful to eat honey, as to support the bees, but after watching this video I totally get it and understand. These past few months I’ve been seriously trialing a plant based lifestyle and the more videos I watch - like this one - and books I read, the more pumped and excited I am to be vegan. Amazing video, as usual!
I've considered myself plant-based for almost 4 years now but in that time continued to consume honey (hence why I don't call myself vegan). The reason for this was, as was stated in the video, I was under the assumption that we needed to support the industry that bred bees because populations were in decline and that could have a detrimental impact on ecosystems. 4 years of ignorance has been corrected after watching a 6 minute video, and I will no longer consume or support the honey industry. Thank you for the effort you put into making this.
Very good. I always learn something new, even as a beekeeper's child. I have never heard of the industrial practices you explain at the beginning, but the arguments still stand.
Comparing honeybees to "wild bees" seems a bit off, there a plenty of wild honeybees around, consider referring to them as bumble and solitary bee species. Aside from that, it is certainly possible to keep bees naturally, chemical/treatment free and without any feeding (sugar) yet still attain a sizeable honey crop while still leaving enough food stores for the bees themselves. Natural beekeeping is perfectly sustainable and has been practiced around the world for thousands of years, the problem comes from large-scale commercial farming and lack of proper education on the subject. I am just a beginner beekeeper so take what i say with a grain of salt.
@Amanley Load Honeybees are more aggressive than some native wildbees, competing with them and demolishing their populations. The increase of use honeybees has demolished wild bee populations. And any type of bee roaming around people would literally be no problem at all if people didn't bother them.
@@cvandeleur depends on the location. Honeybees are native to europe so they didn't ruin any populations of wild bees here and the argument becomes invalid.
and it HELPS the Bees you utter imbecile who knows NOTHING about Bee Keeping. Bees are honey making machines, they never stop. They would fill all their combs with honey, with no room for new brood if we didn't take it. Result, dead Bees once the old ones die. By taking the excess, we are literally doing them a favour, leaving fresh empty combs for them to breed new Bees. It's one of the most symbiotic relationships we have with nature. Not only that, we can treat them for Varroa mites when they happen, lowering Bee deaths dramatically. THAT is what caused the Bee decline problem in the first place and Bee Keepers are what ended it and brought their numbers back up.
@@rainonedavid3564 Yes, Bees are honey making machines, they never stop, so they would fill hives regardless. The delusion of Vegan imbeciles is that we shouldn't farm honey, but were it not for Beekeepers, you'd have NO Bees and plant foods now, that's the hard reality. The Bee decline a few years ago (and is still a challenge) was reversed and brought back to healthy numbers PRECISELY BECAUSE of Bee Keepers. Without them, where is the chemical treatment of their hives to kill the Varroa mites which were infecting them? It wasn't GMO or Neonic pesticides killing them or any other evidence lacking nonsense people claimed. It was Varroa mites responsible for most of it and we can solve that rather simply in a way that doesn't harm Bees, but it is something humans have to do, the Bees cannot. Meanwhile the Vegans suck back Agave nectar as an alternative, killing long nose Bats. Vegan irony is great and bites them in their stupid asses constantly. Lol. This is what happens when you become a blind, brainwashed, feckless Vegan cultist.
@@MrBilld75 "were it not for Beekeepers, you'd have NO Bees" Okay, explain how wild bees survive. We're not farming them so by your logic they should all be dead.
@@blahdelablah Not talking about those Bees, you dishonest fool. I am talking about the Bee decline issue that was so widely talked about, good grief, be honest for once in your life. Beekeepers helped the decline recover, period and proven. Grow a brain, you pathetic fool. We'd have no pollinating Bees for crops, stupid. spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/news/2019/06/19/bee-keepers-working-to-save-declining-bee-populations
This was extremely helpful!!! Although I stopped eating honey when I turned vegan I was never deeply convinced of why I shouldn't and now I am! so grateful for this video
Don't listen to this video look up actual bee keeper videos none of these practices are widely used the vast majority of honey is vegan friendly and ethically done, been keepers so everything they can to keep their hives health and long living
Really well explained and mentioning a lot of facts but I have some questions. You say that honey bees harm the other type of bees, but at the same time say that certain types of bees pollinate certain types of plants/flowers. doesn't that mean they don't harm each other? Also, as someone who works with beekeeping as a hobby, I can say from experience that not all honey farmers use these methods and there are more ethical ways to farm honey, such as - only extracting honey in July and leaving the rest of the months for the bees to gather honey for the winter, - moving the bees to indoor storage during winter to ensure the survival of the bees during harsher winters - not clipping wings and instead of checking up on hives and in case they have a queen cell, placing that in another hive avoids swarming and grows into another colony. Bees do feel pain individually, but at the same time bees don't act like other types of mammals, they are all connected as a hive mind, doing what they deem would be most beneficial to the colony. Yes, sometimes some bees get squeezed and die during extraction and maybe 10 bees die when you do it, but a colony has more 20-80k bees meaning the overall bee population doesn't get hurt from that loss. Also, in the video, you say that bees harm plants by not pollinating and instead just bringing pollen back to the hive instead of bringing it to other plants, but to my knowledge, having bees increase crop yield, so saying it doesn't seem weird, I know companies here in Sweden ask bee-keepers to place their colonies near their farms to increase yield, and if a vegan lifestyle takes over globally I also feel that bees will help reduce the amount of farmland and help drive down the cost of agriculture which will benefit everyone. As an ending, I am trying to become vegan, I'm having some difficulties fully committing to it but am eating mostly vegan and I know that's not popular, but even when I become fully vegan I don't believe I will stop working with bees as I feel it still has a beneficial place in a vegan society.
Life is suffering. every life form is out to eat each other in some way or another. I do my part by not having children. I want to eat meat like a cat would like to eat meat. Where can I get it without causing animal suffering? Is hunting ok? Cats hunt.
All of this also applies to beeswax, found in many cosmetics and creams, lipbalms, candles and so on. Often listed in Latin in ingredients lists, as "Cera alba", or I've seen it also listed as "Cera flava".
Alot of what you mention in the first half of the video about bee keeping methods is likley from extreme methods of farming used to put products on shelves in supermarkets not for small, local farmers. I've never seen a local farmer use any of these methods like wing clipping,artifical insemination, killing for the winter, bin-bag deaths or the like. Killing the queen is usually done to save the whole hive E.g. if she is defective at laying eggs (e.g. only lays drone bees) as putting a new queen, or letting the hive raise a new queen is better for them than keeping the old queen. Killing a hive for its temperment is usually if the bees are incredibly aggressive and pose a threat to wildlife, pets or other people that may get close. It's usually a last resort. A keeper may attempt to swap out the hive's queen with a more docile one, which over time can turn the hive more docile too. Ethical bee keeping would be checking the hives regularlly for swarm cells to minimise risks of swarming, instead of clipping wings. Understanding when the hive's might need help or when harvesting honey shouldnt be done. (drought can lead to less flower growth, so less honey to make). A good bee keeper can recognise when to let bees keep any honey they make as a food source for the winter, usually only excess is harvested or midway through the year so bees can still make more honey ready for winter. Some people even bring their bee boxes inside. I support the growth of veganism but spreading misinformation/ not being specific enough about industry vs local, i feel just puts a bad light on it. Especially when I recognised multiple clips in this video that were used out of context to promote the cause, all from ethical and small bee keepers that like to post clips on youtube to educate people about bee keeping.
YES. Exactly. Small scale beekeeping can easily be ethical for the simple reason that its very expensive and time consuming to the point that most people wouldn’t even attempt it except for a fascination and appreciation of bees. I have taken a 3 day beekeeping course and have met many master beekeepers who shared their knowledge and host community classes. They love their bees like their children and most of this information does not apply to them in the slightest. What also bothers me is this idea that nature is gentle and beautiful and perfect and we humans can only ruin it. I think that happens often so we apply it to everything. But bees are violent and lead violent lives. Queens kill competing baby queens constantly. Male drones are abandoned to die outside the hives before winter every year because they no longer serve a purpose for breeding and more will be hatched in the spring. Yellow jackets and wasps often destroy entire hives, beheading the bees and eating the brood. Bee colonies regularly attack and kill other colonies to steal their young and overtake their hives. Entire hives can be destroyed by pesticides sprayed on crops which is a huge problem where I live for apiaries. Hobbyist beekeepers can offer a life that can be less painful and short than even nature can. I wish this video were more balanced with regards to the thousands of private beekeepers.
I completely see your point, and thank you for commenting and bringing it up. I think it’s important to be factual about everything that can affect our environment, and also when sentient creatures are hurt. Unfortunately I think we can agree that most honey consumers get their honey from large supermarkets - and that’s a problem, as you seem to agree? This is primarily why people need to be educated about the consequences of those purchases and maybe as you said, encouraged to turn to local bee keepers. This could eventually run the risks of some bee keepers growing to such a scale, again, that’s more detrimental than beneficial - simply due to demand. We are all in this together after all and we need to put our brains together.
You're effectively using the local farms argument. You're still exploiting an animal, for a product we don't need to eat in order to make money and the animal is detrimental to local ecosystems.
Thank you for this video, as a backyard beekeeper I think there is a big difference between the commercial practices and the "amateurs" as in any agricultural industry. Bees are absolutely amazing animals and fascinating. Their complex social structure and communication is mind blowing. I do not clip queen wings and my bees can swarm away whenever they feel like (and they will fly away if not content!). It is my goal to keep them happy and healthy so they do not leave and will focus on collecting honey to the point that they make more than they need (as they do since they are always working). Farmers in The Netherlands plant narrow strips of wildflowers between mono-crops, I think this helps all pollinators and supports healthy ecosystems, a rising tide lifts all ships. Thanks for being vegan!
Same. Vegans are so frustrating... It's bad enough that you have to spend an extra two hours making a separate starter, main and dessert for some annoying prick who's only going to spend the entire meal turning their nose up and making faces at all the other guests eating the same lovingly prepared meal which does, rightly, contain meat and dairy. My brother is a vegan... Not for dietary reasons but for "ethical reasons"... But always has the latest iPhone, drives an electric car and occasionally "cheats for convenience" when vegan food isn't available... But refuses to "cheat" when someone has prepared a family meal for 11 other people... F*cking vegans! arrrrgh!
I was wondering about this earlier today because I was offered a jar of honey but took a jar of fig preserves instead. As always, thanks for the information, Ed!
Ironically figs most likely have dead bees inside of them since som bees lay their eggs inside of figs but the larvae (the male ones) don’t always leave the fig!
Smuf Zetta only certain species of organic figs, almost all figs you buy at the store either aren’t compatible with wasps or are grown inside to prevent wasps laying eggs. Either way, at least we aren’t intentionally trying to use and kill those wasps as we do bees
@@matthewdennis1739 Matthew, everyone exploits nature… even the Vegans. The thing is, by being Vegan, whatever Jeremy Clarkson has told you, you reduce that exploitation to its absolute minimum… less than ten percent of the average "SADer". When I'm out with friends who smoke, I can't avoid passive smoking, but I'm NOT going to start back on the cigarettes again. I can't avoid traffic fumes when out on my bike, but for some strange reason, I don't put my mouth up to various exhaust pipes and start inhaling. Y'dig? 😉
Most of these videos focus on the extremes. The real problem is corporate farming generally. But because the largest and most powerful farming industries of all animal by-products are SUPER extreme, we have to shape our advocacy to counteract that. + Even the best save the bees efforts that beekeepers make often don't do enough to promote the populations of non-honey bees (the ones who are better pollinators and who the planet most needs). Do you have suggestions for non-beekeepers to promote healthy populations of non-honey bees? I'd love to know more
You probably still do all the harmful effects on local native bees described in the second half of the video tho. Unless you somehow keep them fully enclosed.
One way in order to avoid honey bees outcompeting native bees is to plant wildflowers which are native to your area. The leading cause to bee declines in the UK is because since world war 2 we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows. This increases competition between species as they are all fighting over a few individual plant species. If you increase the amount of plant species in your garden, you can help the native bees
I've been wanting to find good sources of information about this for a while. Can you show some pointers or links to where you found out about the negative implications on the ecosystem?
Mmm, no. Miss me with that nature mysticism. We've already meddled when we brought invasive species. Leave things alone and the midwest will be overrun by tumbleweeds, for example.
As a vegan, I feel we should leave meat eaters alone and let them do what they want. I can understand why meat eater hate us vegan now... always nagging at them to be vegan. Like just leave them alone!
@Patrick Di Salvo I love how all of a sudden all these things are only the fault of vegans now. Enjoy your nihilism I guess since it seems like absolute perfection means free reign to not take the first step.
This video is pure propaganda. If you're interested in actually learning more, there are literally millions of hours of beekeeping videos on RUclips. Please don't make assumptions based on 6 and a half minutes of biased information.
Hi, fellow vegan here:) the only thing I wish you would mention, is slovenian beekeeping culture. Slovenia is the country, which really cares for wellbeing of bees.
I live in Utah & am fortunate to have met 3 beekeepers within the last two years & none of them cull their colonies because it's pretty easy to maintain them over winter. Some beekeepers do choose to use sugar syrups through the entire winter but many leave enough honey for the hive to last through winter & if the winter endures they will then supplement with a sugar syrup. None of the studies available done on the effect of sugar syrup have indicated conclusively a positive or negative affect on bees themselves. The jury is still out on whether it causes harm or if it helps, or if it's a neutral affect. Another thing, bees aren't native to North America - wild colonies tend to die out in half the time of kept populations for this reason alone they typically fair far worse in winter. Nowhere in this video did you mention the conflict of the "no harm" ethos when it comes to honey substitutes which would allow for a more fully rounded discussion on the ethics & alternatives of honey so people can decide for themselves. Such as how agave harvesting is directly linked to destroying bats natural habitats thus decimating the populations just for what, the demand for commercial sweeteners? Or the high climate impact of rice syrup? Or the amount of food that solely exist due to our reliance on commercial beekeeping? Are you not going to eat cucumbers, blueberries, peaches, watermelon, zucchinis etc & so on because they are pollinated by commercial bee populations? Or almonds in California that require over half the bee population in the US to be shipped there in order for their production? What about all the rodents & birds that die as a part of machine harvesting? At what point do you stop eating all the foods that use kept bee populations to pollinate? If you don't eat organic are you no longer vegan because we know there is a science backed correlation between pesticide use & the mass die-off of bees? At what point are you *actually causing less harm in your food choices vs you just not liking the idea of something & choose an alternative that is far worse for the environment or causing issues for other animals? Also, it's weird to me the amount of focus that is put on whether honey is vegan or not and yet nobody wants to talk about the glaring negative impact of agave harvesting. How is that causing less harm? Why is that not under further scrutiny? Or the amount of vegan recipes using cashews without mentioning the ethics of cashew harvesting when they range from burns to blindness of the harvesters who are also not paid a living wage. Also the lack of conversation about how much positive impact can be done just by eating local & buying local.
No one replied to your excellent post, so I will. I get the honey thing. The argument presented is that honey production is cruel and there ... the argument is suspended. The primary reason for these bees is to increase the productivity of commercial crops like apples and almonds, by like 40%, they are shipped around the country for this very purpose? Therefore the same argument must apply to apples and almonds or any commercially grown fruit?
Sadly, no one ever responds when you rationally challenge their echo chamber. Great points, but vegans choose to ignore them because introspection would lead to cognitive dissonance.
I've always had a hard time explaining to other people why I don't eat honey and I've even eaten honey that's been given to me as a gift. This video has given me the information I need to 1) not eat honey again and 2) inform my friends and family about why eating honey isn't a positive action. I had no idea that the bee keeping industry was so bad.
humans are apex predators vegans kill billions of animals with crop farming earthling ed eats meat off camera and gets paid from world economic forum to spread disinfo propaganda humans are CARNIVORE by physiology
This video is mostly inaccurate or outdated as most honey is not harvested this way as it's a horribly inefficient way to make honey. Don't get all the info from a single video when there's hundreds of bee videos from dozens to hundreds of bee keepers around the world showing how hives are kept and honey is harvested and spoiler alert, none of the shit in this video is in those videos because only an insane billionaire would operate so unethically. Plus vegans destroy the environment with agave and almonds
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Bee 🐝 puke 🤢🤮!!!
🍁😋✅👍
I thought I knew a lot about bees.....thank you for the further education! We have hayfields and are always watching for precious bees but so few are seen now. We nurture milkweed patches and I’ve sown more clover in our fields......yes, we’re vegan! Thank you again for this piece on bees!
@David McCarthy whoa chill out man. Not cool.
@@lelrond Agreed.
@David McCarthy What you meant was: Person with morals and a good understanding of reality tells idiot to chill out.
bruv why do we do all this just to get honey. just use maple syrup
Maple syrup doesn't taste good.
Agave is even better
@@black_caps maple syrup tastes great, but you're probbaly not from Canada so you never had pure maple syrup.
Maple syrup is my fav
@@black_caps Actually wrong.
When she calls you honey instead of Agave.
👍🏼😂👍🏼😂
LMAOOOOOO good one
agave is terrible. maple syrup all day
TaylorAmelia all sweeteners that aren’t products of animal suffering are good in my book! Lol
Brendan Morin that’s because you are devoid of compassion or empathy you psychopath
I thought I knew a lot about bees, but this video expanded on aspects I didn't know. Thank you.
same here
Yeah same here. I knew practically nothing about the industry. I'm glad I didn't pick a package of muesli from the store, even when I really wanted some but everything had honey in them :(
I personally believe that Edward is sensationalizing the plight of the bumblebee for personal gain;
but I'm not going to try to make you eat honey.
@@wisemage0 How does he gain from it?
@@wisemage0 someone that speaks for the animals is not selfish.The people that exploit animals for their personal gains then?
Me before this video: "How can honey be bad? I don't understand." 6.20mins later: "Yeah fair enough."
vegans cant use papers as well, Am I right?
@Ian Lev Nah, you're just selfish. I don't really see the ethical concerns considering that we still exterminate ants and kill flies and they have comparable nervous systems, but the environmental impacts are degrading many wildlife habitats, and you should be aware of that whenever you make the active choice to buy honey.
Ian Lev didn’t you watch the video? I don’t care about the lives of bugs, but I do care about the environment
Same
@Ian LevWe all came here thinking just like you and we all changed our minds on the subject. You got to at least watch the video and give it a chance. When you just say things like "Vegans are mental, they know virtually nothing..." no adult will give a shit about it if you don't make your case with good arguments. If you watched the video and still think it's full of shit, please tell us why. We're all just like you, we just need an argument that makes sense. If you have these good arguments, please share. Or you can always keep beeing a baby and just cry about you needing your honey. Pussy move, but you choose how to live your life.
I had no idea about this.. I grew up having home made honey and saw how my granddad would care for his bees (he only had one box, not to sell, just for personal use) and I thought that was how everyone would care for the bees because he cared a lot about their well being.. thank you for this explanation, now I can see how bad honey can be and understand things that never crossed my mind! I mean, bee insemination?! People are insane!
You could say he cared about their wellbee-ing...
Sorry I had to 😅
@@KalebPeters99 Haha. I saw that missed opportunity too.
@@KalebPeters99 bruh
The same goes with vegan products. Full toxic methods of producing.
Yeah, I guess different beekeepers treat bees differently. But what matters in a bigger picture often is the broad tendency.
I’ve been vegan for a month or so now and haven’t eaten honey in ages anyway but this really cleared up in my head why we don’t eat honey. I wish people would just be more open to learning about how their choices affect the world around them rather than just dismissing it and having negative connotations with the word vegan. So glad I made the change and I don’t think I’ll ever go back
You should read how bees get transported to almond farms. Thousands of bees die from doing this. Yes they get bread for honey but they are also getting bread because of the demand for almonds. Also look up the cashew industry you will be shocked!! Slave labour. I am mostly vegan but i do consume honey as maple syrup just isn't in my budget an honey is a lot cheeper and i try an not consume cashews because of the working conditions.
@@natashacollin8180 You want me to stop eating nuts now, too?
@@wisemage0 it is always important to just give your best. As most know, living 100% vegan is impossible and we can start by changing our behaviour with the biggest effect and continue deeper, getting closer to a more ethical lifestyle. Going vegan is fantastic for ethics, but it is not all. Yes, with a modern vegan diet (which for most people that includes almonds generally from California) you make a great positive step. Would it be better, from a vegan standpoint, to not support farms that rely on shipping bees across the counties every year: Yes. Should you eat yourself up for eating these nuts: No.
Give your best, keep adding positive changes and keep moving forward in a speed that is sustainable for you :)
Next time that I'll see a shooting star, this is what I will wish for too. :)
There is nothing wrong about eating honey you ignorant girl... nor there is nothing wrong eating animal products. Humans are omnivores but it doesn't mean you have to switch from one extreme to another just because some assholes kill bees.
I’m vegan and I still eat honey every now and then. But that will stop right now! I didn’t know the truth about the way the bees are treated and it is awful.
How many dead Insects are the in a loaf of bread?
@@kookrider3571 The difference is, the dead insects aren't supposed to be in the bread. It's not purposeful.
Its not all over the world like in this video.
You were not vegan, now you are, congrats!
thank you! the bees will thank you too 🌼🐝
Honey bees are used for pollination so if you eat advocado, and many other fruit and vegetables, you are eating the product of farmed bees.
I’m a vegan btw, so can I not eat Advocados now?
I also used to own a honey business and the practices shown are just not done, at least not in NZ. For example: we dont want to feed the bees sugar in winter….its expensive to buy and even more expensive to get to the hives, which are often remote. Leaving honey on the hives is better for the bees and dramatically cheaper. We simply could not afford to kill the hives over winter. The pictures of hives being burned are almost certainly hives with proven varroa mite which legally have to be burned, destroying the hives and a lot of other expensive equipment. I’ve seen beekeepers cry doing this.
This video has basically made me question a lot of the things Earthlings Ed has said about industries I dont know about.
Misinformation video at its finest tho.
Caring for bugs and flies is put way too far, we might as well just stop eating anything, because farming causes a lot of damage as well.
We need bees and honey farms in order to grow food effectively, without them we would have to cause massive damage to environment by polinating plants artificially using even more chemicals than we do now.
i’m a vegan and before this video i would consume honey, and honestly i’m ashamed for not educating myself.
This video is not information. It is all lies!
Don't be ashamed its food
@@Molluskenkoenig evidence?
@@a.voice.for.animals I am a beekeeper and I know that this is not how bees are handled. For example it makes nö sense to kill a hive before winter. The food costs arround 20€ and a New colony costs 10 times that ammount. That is just one example of all the BS in this video. If you want proof, go and visit a beekeeper.
@@tobytheimposter8 year old girl's bre@st milk is food too❤
Imagine diligently working a job, only to have people take a portion of your hard earned money and replace it with monopoly bills...
On the ecology side of it, experts say something along the lines of producing honey to "save the bees" is like farming chickens to save wild birds. Great video!
True
@@ryuji_chua so why do vegans drink almond milk, when tens of billions of bees are exploited to produce the almonds.
top ten problems with capitalism
@@andrewjohnson1467 Source?
I am a new "bee" in veganism haha :) and there is a lot to learn . I am binge watching your videos. Just today I was wondering if honey is vegan ,and here is the answer! Thank you so much ,you inspired me to go vegan and help the planet ,our animal friends and also my own health . I am really thankfull ♡
Good for you !! This may also be helpful:) bee well ruclips.net/video/QNOm4QOfZck/видео.html
@@TheGreenBean You can bee sure that I am watching your cooking video ,it is quite helpfull :) Thanks nice human
welcome aboard! :) hope you'll enjoy your journey.
Ed's videos are also the reason I found veganism. I became vegan just last month.
@lizzie z I will check it out ,thank you ☺🌿
This stuff should be taught in schools but sadly are not
Why should schools make everyone vegan
@@itsmefinnstar160 It’s not to make everyone go vegan 🌱 just to educate people
@@jimmywilliams4257 about what?
@@itsmefinnstar160 about where their food comes from
@@kokonattsu2687 everyone knows where food comes from..
Thank you for this. My sister was asking me about this very question and since I am new to veganism, I didn't know all the issues in the honey industry. This answers a lot of questions we both had.
He is a liar
I gave up honey once I became vegan simply cause I thought "honey is for bees" similar to "milk is for baby cows" but I had no idea what happened in the honey bee industry. I imagined a peaceful meadow and a thriving echo system much like they would want me to believe. Good video!
Exactly the same as you. I knew about the replacement of honey with the fake sweetner stuff but never to this extent. It's so upsetting.
Same here. I had suspicions though, now my suspicions have been proven right!
i always thought honey was gross so it was no loss for me tbh
Yeah, I typically just avoided honey because I knew _other_ vegans did the same and figured they had done more research on the topic. It just wasn't something worth the hassle. But I'm so glad he made this video because what that _did_ do was lead to some awkward conversations with non-vegans asking me why I don't eat honey, and I didn't have any good answers.
@Cryptos Cryptos they are lying.. about what?
You convinced me. I'm not eating honey anymore
I didn’t even eat honey before watching this lol I never liked the taste of it
@@Saturn-p8z Lmao fr, it has a strong and not very pleasant taste. It's kind of spicy like cinnamon
This gives such a bad name to bee keepers. This is definitely accurate for industrial honey, but local honey is not at all made like this. Bees make more honey than they could possibly eat, and REAL beekeepers take little, leaving enough honey and plus some for the bees. They don’t poison their bees or mutilate their queens, they take care of the bees. Most beekeepers don’t use gas, as bees aren’t just outright aggressive. They can learn to trust you, and will. Its like having pet chickens and you happen to get eggs because that’s what they produce an excess of.
That still does not address the environmental concerns however. Bee farming is still contributing to the decline of many wild bee species and the decline of many wild plant species, degrading entire ecosystems.
Alex Miller Alex Miller Id be SHOCKED if independent bee keepers who care for one or two hives in their own backyard or property are making any of the significant dents on ecosystems actual mass production honey industries are making. Besides, native bee population support is a real thing that bee keepers and bee enthusiasts absolutely support. For example this non-profit encourages schools, organizations, and community farmers to sponsor native bee hives: thehoneybeeconservancy.org
Many small bee keepers are simply caring for their hives because they want to and not for any particularly lucrative monetary gain (they aren’t usually interested in employing violent tactics used for exploiting and profiting off of bees), and those who care for native bee populations through non-profits like the honey bee conservancy do so TO support their local ecosystems.
@@owiwig5791 of course one bee keeper doesn't do anything but the added effect of thousands of independent beekeepers doing that adds up. Also bees are already threatened by the increasing use of pesticides so it doesn't take much else to speed up wild population decline.
Alex Miller it’s as if you can take the entire population of independent bee keepers from around the world and present that number without context for how few there are in any given area compared to the metric fudge-ton of industrial honey hives there are in these same regions to try justifying an argument against all forms of bee keeping even though I literally gave proof that not all forms of bee keeping are harmful to local ecosystems and the bees themselves. Also if wild/native bee populations are impacted by pesticides so are domestic honeybee populations in the areas they both reside in.
Come to think of it, it’s ultimately as if the problem ISN’T independent bee keepers, but the companies and corporations that enable mass industrial honeybee farming and the foul agricultural practices that are contributing to animal cruelty, over usage of toxic pesticides, worker’s rights violations, and ecosystem damage.
They still have bought the bees from a breeder, and they are exploiting them for profit.
3:43 These are not bees, they are flower flies. Flower flies also known as hover flies are also important pollinators.
humans are apex predators vegans kill billions of animals with crop farming earthling ed eats meat off camera and gets paid from world economic forum to spread disinfo propaganda humans are CARNIVORE by physiology
Thought the heads looked different...
Interesting
Also, on the bee intelligence thing - having taken linguistics, while some bees can communicate pollen sources in a dance akin to language, they have no word of "up" and never devised one. In an experiment, a nectar source was placed high up on a pole - workers relayed the location of the pole to the hive but when more workers were sent there, they just swarmed around the pole.
That is actually really interesting!
Couldn't that just be that hive or regional dialect. If it is akin to language they should have different dances for different regions. Maybe even a form of accent.
@@wownoyoudont861 There are different dances/movements for different bee species, so technically that is a thing.
However, the broader issue is that despite being able to communicate displacement (information that is not in immediate proximity and in the immediate present time), their "language" is not open-ended enough to communicate novel details like a unique altitude.
there’s sugar, maple syrup, agave, and even vegan honey. what is the point in all this?!
Their point is to scare you to their way of yhinking
Alexander no, honey and sugar are almost identical. The difference is refined glucose has only one type of sugar whereas honey and maple syrup have many. Plus the difference is miniscule and you get other sugars from fruit
Ummm the health benefits of honey?? The health benefits come from enzymes bees put into the honey. Everything else is just pure sugar
@@Alexander03312 WRONG! There are worse sugars than table sugar. Pure fructose, is worse than glucose and fructose in table sugar, as you body has to process fructose into glucose. Fructose is well studied to be more damaging to the body than glucose.
sugar production is probably 10x worse for the environment what honey is. The reason you use different sweeteners is because of flavors. Once you reach wide scale production of a crop its bound to be bad for the environment mono cultures are not good for diversity.
There's just no way this is regular beekeeper practice. I can see it being a corporation approach, but none of this seems cost effective for farmers.
I’m Vegan and don’t eat honey but never really knew why, thank you for sharing this
Same!!!!
And you believe his false information. Go talk to a beekeeper, because this video is 90% BS.
@@weirjwerijrweurhuewhr588 never???? A beekeeper says otherwise??
@@weirjwerijrweurhuewhr588 which part specifically is false?
@@rodserlingoftwilightzonefame lol no answer to that ://
I just found out that you came to visit my school last year and I can't believe I missed the opportunity to meet you! You helped completely change how I want to diet when I live on my own. Keep doing what you're doing!🌟
Veganism isn't a diet is a ethical position towards other sentient beings
I wish he came to my school smh
why wait till you live alone? the time is now !
Wapiti
I speculate that it is because they live with their parents/family and cannot afford to buy their own food and those who buy the food are not vegan and therefore will not buy them vegan food.. again, I'm speculating but there are many who are at the mercy of eating what is made available to them if they are unable to support themselves..
@@breathemetal76 True. Sadly many who have empathy for other creatures often forget to empathize with humans. Idk how many times I've seen comments made by other vegans putting down kids...children...for not being able to buy their own food. It's those vegans that give the rest of us a bad name.
*not talking about Wapiti, how can I when Idk if they take what you said into consideration. I know I've made that comment " why wait, do it now," without knowledge of how the commenter lives.
Thanks so much for laying this out, Ed!
This comes up a lot in my daily vegan travels and people can’t seem to compute that there can be exploitation and cruelty to bees in the same basic ways we do to agriculture animals.
Also, side note, I don’t even like honey. Agave nectar is way better!
People don't realize bees produce honey to eat and it's just as bad as milk...
@@nekochadechu I feel like you're cheapening what happens to a cow by equating it to honey.
@@wisemage0 Ah i'm sorry, i meant in the way that taking bees' honey is like taking cows' milk in the sense that they produce it to feed themselves, and since some people (even some vegans sometimes) don't understand that for bees because they are insects.
@@nekochadechu you lack the knowledge to form an opinion. In your world, the bees would suffer and die.
@@shadowthehedgehog9190 almost all of it.
There are noninvasive approaches for keeping bees as well. I don't feel bad about honey from Old Michael's backyard hive, he loves that box almost as much as his homemade wine.
To me the issue doesn't seem to be the honey or collection in and of itself, but rather the industry surrounding it. I feel the same for many animal products.
Almost all living things eat other living things. Most plants have structures that mirror nervous systems, and react to being harmed - Logically they should also have a right to exist. I don't think there is any escaping that. Ultimately we're also part of the natural environment, modern society is just not doing that great at adapting symbiotically with other species, save a select few.
If you care about plants stop eating meat dairy and eggs which use the most plants! But about honey you tell me how do you ethical exploit someone?
This is wildly generalised ed. A friend of mine has a couple of hives. Of which he takes the upmost care. No bees a culled, no bees are harmed during honey harvest. His hives are caught not bought, It really does depend who you get your honey from. It's one of the few animal products that I believe if you get it from the right person you aren't harming the bees.
It´s their work, their honey, having the power to steal from them doesn´t make it right.
Even if the bees are treated well, that still leaves all the other issues (environmental, etc). I guess the statements are focused on industrial honey farming, which I'm sure the majority of all honey in supermarkets comes from.
Your friend is still contributing to wild bees being outcompeted by his honeybees.
@@jacquiskliros637 hmm.. but if he catches wild bees, then how they supose to outcompete wild bees.. it's the same species
@@jestem.mrowka.bigbitowka5238 good luck catching wild bees. But I agree, that probably would be better.
I didn't know they killed off the whole hive during the winter 🥺
me neither, it's such a heartbreaking thing... like pretty much anything else we do to animals :( every time I think I've seen it all, here comes something else...
Me neither and im a beekeeper and vegan myself. I dont steel the honey ofcourse
@@BertRoer what kind of bees you keep?
@@papaidoceuteamamuito5975 Most be for polonizing purposes
I'm highly skeptical that freezing the entire hive is common practice.
We can save the bees without eating honey! Saving a species doesn't have to be beneficial to us!
I wonder how many hive trees you have made or medows that you have cleared, and if you have, how long can you keep it up...
it does in this capitalist hellscape.
By taking honey from them WE ARE of benefit to them, you gullible propaganda believing Vegan. If we didn't take it, they would fill the combs with honey(because they are honey making machines and don't stop), leaving no room for new brood. So it's a win win, dummy. We get tasty honey and they get to breed. Bee Farmers/Keepers are what literally saved Bees from decline, go educate yourself, fool. Vorroa mites are what caused Bee deaths and Bee Keepers/Farmer can treat that and kill them, again, SAVING the Bees. Left to their own devices, Bees get DECIMATED by Varroa mites, entire colonies die. By heating a harmless chemical to the Bees into the hives, they can kill hundreds and more Varroa mites, while not harming the Bees. Can nature do that? NO!
Symbiosis
@@rebbie0905 I love that word!
I'm not even 2 min in and I count 7 compleat lies and 2 images being miss labeled as something they are not.
Nice one, you should do why vegans are against selling sheep fur
From Ed in 2016: ruclips.net/video/dUnTyjBuxkk/видео.html
Wool, not fur. Fur suggests skin is removed
@The Ecocentrist Misanthropic Vegan Thanks
@@bradbeattie Thanks
selling? and using
Being vegan, I never ate honey because I felt it wasn’t my food to take. However, I had no idea how unbalancing domestic bees are for the ecosystem and the way they are bred. This was very informative. Will definitely share!
In Harmony With Earth “vegan” bee keeper is an oxymoron. You can’t change the definition of veganism to fit your non-vegan lifestyle. idc how nice you are to the bees, if you’re using them for profit or personal pleasure then you’re not vegan. idk why people who wish to use others want to label themselves as part of a cause they don’t truly believe in.
This video is vegan propaganda. Start beekeeping yourself to learn the truth about what goes on. Until then? Don’t watch propaganda videos.
So you won't eat processed pollen (honey, which DOESN'T hurt plants)... but you'll rip off the plant's reproductive organs and eat them raw?
You won't allow bees to share the excess food they store up humanely... but you'll actively steal food from a helpless little baby bunny?
How can you be so heartless and mean?
Thanks Ed, I've been vegan for 5 years and thought the only reason for not eating honey was the use of sugar syrup.
Bees are one of the very few animals which consent to be farmed - if your bees dont like your hive, they sod off. The keeper has to care for them - plant flowers, monitor for signs of disease, take only excess honey. What you're objecting to is factory farming - people having one hive at the bottom of the garden is good for your plants; and means we get a sweetner nither shipped halfway round the world nor derived from petrol
Super informative as always, thank you!
Wow I was literally thinking yesterday "has Earthling Ed ever made a video on honey?? I hope he does" that's crazy
@Cryptos Cryptos enlighten us then ;)
@Cryptos Cryptos well I won't take advice from someone who called me an idiot, I didn't even say anything controversial or my opinion
@@taym1698 nothing in the video is true. Why not look up some bee channels and see what really happens? You obviously have you tube.
@@inharmonywithearth9982 yea I know there is lots of great beekeepers out there who take good care of their bees, keep doing what you do. I've wanted to beekeep myself and that's why I wanted more facts and opinions on it
Tay M this video is cherry picked propaganda. Start beekeeping for yourself before you form opinions based on some douchebag’s click bait video.
thanks for this video. im a vegan and for a while i didnt eat honey at fist, but then thoughtt that honey wasnt unethical or unsustainable. after doing more research and also seeing this video, i wont be buying honey in the future. i do still have a jumbo jar of it, but im not going to throw it out or be hard on myself, ill use it. the goal is to keep growing as a person and we're imperfect, its okay to keep learning.
Agreed, throwing away the honey wouldn‘t help the bees.
Last year I made my own „honey“: I cooked lion's-tooth flowers with sugar until it reached a honey-like texture. Turned out more liquid than intended, but works perfectly fine. Alternatively there are things like maple sirup, agave nectar and vegan honey one can buy.
@@Alina_Schmidt
The healthiest sweeteners are fruits like raisins, dates, bananas, mangoes and jackfruit
Lol you're missing out killer bee honey is amazing.
I'm seeing a lot of information, but no sources...
Kind of a red flag...
Sorry but as a vegetarian and a beekeeper 95% of this total bullshit.
Buy locally produced honey - I promise you nobody is out pouring gasoline on their beehives before winter 😂. What an utter load of crap.
I am a vegan for almost 6 years now. Back in my past took a class in beekeeping and kept bees for a season. I don't know about commercial bee production practices either here or in Europe. Just want to comment about a few things that Ed said and that are not happening in the smaller, local honey production hobbies and businesses in the USA.
at 0:26 - he speaks about instrumental insemination; in nature, virgin queens go on mating flights. Her mating flights, across a few days, will result in collecting sperm from 10-25 drones. When a drone (male) bee inseminates a new queen (female) he soon dies because his endophallus breaks along with associated abdominal tissues that are ripped from the drone's body after sex. A portion of the endophallus remains inside the Queen. The male falls to the ground and soon dies from his few moments of sexual bliss. So while it seems harsh that bee breeders are crushing drones to inseminate new queens, the reality of nature, sadly, is about the same for drones.
at 0:50 - swarming is said to be bad for business, which is true. It also can be bad for neighbors when new colony swarms take off and land to make a colony in someone's attic or walls. It is much better to stop the swarming at the hive of origin and it is the beekeeper's responsibility to prevent swarms from happening through correct practices that include destruction of the queen cells - this must be done at least 2 times per week to prevent swarming in the spring. (I was a bad beekeeper - my hive swarmed and my neighbors complained - putting a halt to my hobby. I relocated my hive to a friend with a small, local honey hobby.)
at 1:03 - where Ed says that after the hives are harvested for honey, they are often culled for the winter because culling of hives is cheaper than feeding the hive through the winter months. I wasn't taught to do that - bees are in decline and a hive is a very precious team. I live in California and bees are easy to overwinter if you don't take every honey super. I was taught to just leave one for the bees and harvest the remaining supers which the bees have overproduced. Hive populations diminish naturally when cold weather comes and one honey super is usually sufficient to keep the hive well fed through the winter. Still, you need to check the hive every week to be sure they have food remaining. It is a practice to feed sugar water if the hive uses up the remaining honey super. Also, water is always made available because bees need the water.
at 3:34 Ed speaks about competition between honey bees and native bees and other pollinators. I think in a completely non-agrarian area this is true. In my experience living in California, there are so many agricultural fields that there is an overabundance of flowering plants and I understand that farmers need honeybees for their plants to produce enough nuts and fruits for a successful harvest; wild pollinators have not been abundant enough to do a profitable job. Maybe if permaculture were a more universally practiced production method, where there are wild areas left between the production fields, then the wild bees could take care of the pollination needs for food production. We are not there yet and hives of honey bees are brought to the fields to boost nut and fruit production.
I am also concerned about native wildflowers, plants and pollinators. I enjoy gardening and have made a plot of wildflowers and native California plants that will attract pollinators of all kinds at my current home. I notice many different species of wild bees, bumblebees and butterflies visiting and giving more color, movement and life to the area and that fills me with joy. I plan to convert more lawn areas (which the previous owner planted) to native species and home food production over time and as my budget allows, and talk with neighbors about the benefits of my native garden to advocate the benefits and to assist them with their conversions. Thank you Ed, for such an important work that you do.
Is there a way to give back my honey to wild bees?
@@lauratempestini5719 Yes! But it would go to the honeybees that made it. Beekeepers do it all the time in winter if a hive needs help. If you pour it into a shallow bowl and place it near a hive they will clean up every drop and stash it back in their hive.
@@gammayin3245 so wait for winter?
@@lauratempestini5719 no the bees will take in honey anytime you set it out for them ☺
DON'T feed random honey to bees! Only feed a hive the honey they produced. When you give them store bought honey, or honey that's not from them, they can get viruses which can kill the entire colonie. Just mix some sugar-water whith a 3/2 ratio (1.5 kg sugar, 1 l water), put it in a bowl with sticks so they don't drown and bam! Fed the bees without any harm
This video brought up viewpoints I had never heard before. Thank you for sharing.
Huge and complex topic, well explained, good video
As a vegan who did eat honey, I am done with that! I had no idea what horrible things were done to bee's, thank you so much for the information
Hi Ed - Great video as always but would you be able to add the links for any references, stats and studies to the description section of the video? I always think it's important that everything should be cited.
Mostly is hear say. I'm a beekeeper and I've never had to use insemination and I've had the same beehives for about 3 years now. YES there are extreme capitalist beekeepers but you will rarelly find them selling local.
@@felathar1985 thank you
@@felathar1985 Most people do not buy local honey. Most people buy it from a grocery store and have no idea where it comes from, or buy it already in products. This type of honey is almost exclusively going to be from large scale producers who use every corner-cutting technique they can.
Furthermore, your comment only addresses the bee abuse aspect of the video. All the other points about genetic bottle-necking, wild bee population destruction and wildflower decline are still relevant even to a small scale beekeeper like yourself.
@@velar123 wrong. it depends on the country. capitalist countries work like that, but in our country honey are rarely available in our groceries. our honey still comes from local farmers.
@@velar123 many of the small scale bee keepers actually keep local bee species in order to preserve them and helping them survive, actively fighting genetic bottlenecking.
And I also know plenty of people that have wildflowers growing in their garden, often leaving parts basically unkept so the flowers can grow unobstructed. From what I've seen the people that keep bees keep them to help not only the bees but also try to preserve as much wildlife as possible in general, which includes plants as well
I'm not going to say no one does this. But I have bees and it's nothing like this lol. They are nice. And I try to help them and in return I take some honey for me. And I help them thru the winter.
Their presence will create a competition between the natural bees, a competition the natural bees can't win, damaging the surrounding environment and natural bee population.
@@danp2687 idk if you noticed but the world if far from natural. I pick up litter all the time. People are burning trash and destroying stuff all day. Beekeeping is a lesser evil. Assuming the beekeeper is not doing crazy stuff to the bees.
Tack!
This owes more to ideology than anything factual. It's not my job to defend the commercial honey industry, but don't tar small-scale beekeepers with the same brush.
I’m just becoming a vegan and didn’t know about the bee cruelty. I have a bee and butterfly garden and we have lots of bees in the summer in the garden. We planted plants and flowers that we researched they would like. We get lots of butterflies too. We rescue some bees who are sleepy or drunk by placing them in the undergrowth so they’re safe until they wake up. It’s disgusting how non humans are treated. Since I changed to vegan my asthma has all but gone and I’ve lost weight. My rashes have gone I don’t cry or feel sad as much and I feel more awake.
If bees are the largest pollination source, then why eat the plants they pollinate, as a vegan?
Too big brain for these folk
This footage is all out of perspective. The guy drowning the hive had to take it out because his neighbor’s kids were getting stung repeatedly and they were killing other hives. I’ve seen the footage and he Waited months, requeened them, moved them, did EVERYTHING you can do to change the temperament of a hive before “culling” which isn’t even a term we use. The videos of the bees in the bags were of @thekillerbeeguy moving a swarm so large it was breaking a tree from a populated area to an unpopulated one and they shook all the bees out. I am a honeybee removal specialist and I run a rescue for bees. That’s my job. I literally save bees 24/7 365. Most beekeepers DO NOT kill off their hives to overwinter, they feed them and seal off the hive with insulation leaving a small enough exit for the bees to cleanse without losing crucial heat and moisture. If you want the truth? Vegans are hypocrites. Far more bees are killed during the pollenation of almonds, zucchini, squash, avocados and other stone fruits. They’re forklifted onto pallets of six hives and then lifted with a crane onto semis with hundreds of pallets belonging to multiple different beekeepers and covered with nets while they’re driven across the country and deposited in a strange place with very little nectar and other bees who may have mites or beetles right after a hard winter. Then the almonds are sprayed with fungicide which kills billions of bees. This is repeated every five weeks until all the crops are pollinated. Then the bees are taken to the Great Plains or back to their home and left alone to make honey until October or November. Replacing bees is $250 for a PACKAGE. That’s just a couple hundred bees and a queen. It’s far cheaper to feed the bees sugar syrup over the winter. whoever made this video is a propagandist and didn’t bother to check his sources whatsoever. SHAME ON YOU
This needs to be spoken about more, thank you Ed for spreading such an important message. Save the bees 🐝
This video is propaganda. Not to mention you should probably do a little digging on the almond industry before your holier than thou vegan attitude fully kicks in. You want to be part of the solution? Boycott almonds and other monoculture that NEED industrial beekeeping to survive. My advice? Start breaking for yourself and learn the truth by actually DOING SOMETHING.
This video is pure propaganda. If you're interested in actually learning more, there are literally millions of hours of beekeeping videos on RUclips. Please don't make assumptions based on 6 and a half minutes of biased information.
For the first couple months of being vegan I still ate honey, but then I saw the horror of the honey industry and immediately stopped consuming it. This videos has more information in it than all of the other videos about honey I’ve seen. Well done.
Just buy local honey from a small scale local beekeeper. Then you can enjoy it knowing the bees were well looked after.
I've seen rainforest beeing burnt to make place for soya bean plantations. So, will you stop eating soya products now? Not all honey is produced in the same way exactly as soya products aren't produced in the same way.
@@aakesson1 To feed cows
@@nigelpearson7228 Ok... Next time read the entire comment.
@@aakesson1 You're not wrong, I prefer oat milk to soya, but sometimes get soya if it's cheaper. Personally I can live without honey, but if I was to buy it regularly I would do my research.
I hate it when people kill insects for no reason, just leave them alone they aren’t hurting you in any way.
I agree, I can't stand cockroaches though.
Do you know how many insects die for your stupid vegan diet?
I don’t get why they can’t just release the bees rather than killing them :/
GarudaLegends find a more useful way to spend your time, sweaty
Not harming you in any way? Have you heard about mosquitos? They bite humans carrying diseases. That causes harm.
I love how most of your videos have captions for such a variety of languages. Makes it so much easier to spread the message to non-english speakers as this content isn't very popular or of high quality in many countries (such as in my case) - thanks to the captions I can share your videos with my family and am just so grateful for the impact that they're having
Thank you for this, Ed!!
Me when Ed says pessimism is a sign of intelligence:
🤭 "Oh, you."
Yeah, intelect is literally the ability of 'reading the inside' 😎 inte(rior) lect(ure)
Thank you for posting this. I am on a plant based diet except for honey, and have looked for a very long time for detailed arguments against honey production and have never found anything like this through quick googles. Super helpful, I will be rethinking honey consumption going forward. :)
I'd appreciate sources in the description or a pinned comment. Not meant in a negative way. It's important to know where our food actually comes from whether we're vegan or not. I never thought to question honey. However, sources would be expected of any reporting and increase legitimacy.
Lol, this video contains so much BS. Here's one:
Does it make financial sense to kill off a beehive instead of feeding them for winter? No it fucking does not.
Here's the math:
-Full size colony (easily 100-150 euros).
-Feeding bees 20 kg of sugar 0.80 * 20 = 16 euros. Even if you triple that, it would be cheaper to feed them.
On top of that, if you want to be able to harvest spring honey you need a strong colony coming out of winter. It also costs sugar to start up a new colony, so there's nothing saved. In other words, check your facts.
Honestly, I hate humans sometimes.
most of the time.
Yeah only took around 100 years to destroy bast amount of ecosystems because of dissonance cognitive and greed hope our generation when all baby boomers Politicians die out can make turn before we destroy ourselves
"Keeping these bees alive decreases our profit by 2%, fucking gas them"
Typical human hating vegan
@@anulfolantigua6291 As Steve Jobs wisely said:
"Death is nature's mechanism to get rid of the old and make way for the new"
We milenials were cursed with being given a far worse planet than our parents and grand parents were given, but we were also very blessed with social media that helps us carry information and provide eye opening insights, so we have the capacity to change and make the world a better place. Correct the injustice done by previous generations.
I really needed that video to send to friends and family when they ask “not even HONEY???”
@Amanley Load I do think not all things in the video are always true. Not all beekeepers kill their bees in winter for example.
What does happen, however, is the prevention of swarming by killing off drones. That is also a way of trying to prevent the varroamite from spreading in your colony.
That is another issue. The varroamite spreads in honey bee colonies quite easily which can then spread to solitary/wild bees.
Another thing I find interesting about your response is that you say "most of the time the human ones feed their honey back to them to regain strength." To me this implies that the honey is ours, while it is the natural food for the bees, which they produced for themselves. You seem to not even argue for the fact that the bees produce too much and we just take the leftovers, which most people would.
And to the point of the bees being killed because "Those bees was attacking children and suspected agressie african genetics.": wild bees, at least in the UK and Europe, (almost) never attack humans. Seems to me that this is another reason not to keep them.
This video doesn't have much appeal to anybody who isn't already Stanning Ed.
If you send it to your family and friends they'll probably think you've been indoctrinated.
There us not enough wild pollination insects for all the plants. They will not be affected by honey bee.
@Amanley Load finally someone who understands that this video is bs. Nobody i know treats his bees like in this video. Pure nonsense.
This video is pure propaganda. If you're interested in actually learning more, there are literally millions of hours of beekeeping videos on RUclips. Please don't make assumptions based on 6 and a half minutes of biased information.
Just buy local and know your beekeepers practices and you’re fine. Honey can be ethical
Thank you for sharing Ed, didn’t know about this at all
Those aren't bees at 3:41. They are hoverflies
I did know all that I must admit .
My experience with honey keeping was different as my neighbour was bee keeper as small holder.
He didnt do non of that.
usually a beekeeper prepares his colonies for winter (meaning to make sure they have enough food until next spring). its not common practice to kill a hive after summer. a beekeeper normally wants his colonies to survive and tries everything to reach that goal. they only need to be killed if there is a problem (infectious desease or them being overaggressive to a degree where they are dangerous)
@Amanley Load there is a few things i (a beekeeper myself) dont understand in the video. it is said it s cheaper to kill a hive than getting it ready for winter. i dont know prices all over the world, but here in middle europe, germany - i'd say its about 20 euros: bee feed (sirup or own honey or combo of both ) inclusive varroa winter medication - while a new colony is about 130-150 euros. i dont understand how he can say its cheaper to kill.... about 20 euros vs 150. maybe im missing something.
@@steffomatic its most likely really cheap when they do it on a wide scale. I'd imagine large companies probably get batches of them really cheap, considering insects are one of the easiest things to breed. Bees sold to hobbyist are so expensive because there's a chance the person buying them will never buy from that company again, since the person now has the ability to generate in theory "infinite bees". This is how I have two hives going, the first one swarmed and i collected them. This is purely speculation on my part but if bees really were that expensive the companies wouldn't just kill them.
@Amanley Load Why are you so eager to call veganism a cult?
@@devon12346 well , i cant say for sure how it is for all parts of the world, but here in germany and other european countries all fellow beekeepers i know, hobby beekeepers or commercial beekeepers with xxx colonies, would call it simply insanity to kill off a healthy hive instead of maintaining it and taking care of as good as possible - i cannot imagine it being cheaper to kill it here...(usually hobby beekeepers or commercial beekeepers multiply their colonies every year by creating own nucs, i do, too - and if a beekeeper wants to reduce, hes gonna sell some colonies - and if a beekeeper wants to expand, hes gonna buy some extra ones.prices are very similar and do not vary that much in general). Even commercial beekeepers need to buy new queens occasionally - and they also pay 20+ euros for one(or even 100 or more). i dont see them getting super extra conditions for getting batches - maybe 10-20% discount, maybe not . i dont know about china or other asian places for example. ive seen some footage from chinese mass production (honey) and i must say what i saw was disgusting and it should be boykotted - i condemn this , too. bottom line is - i do not understand some parts of the video, i do not agree on everything and i dont like how things are generalized way too much. (like all beekeepers cut/trim the wings of the queen, etc. etc. - nobody i know does that crap)
This is not all true, there are definitely some companies out there who put the bees first, they will only take the excess from the hive. I lived in a reputable Apiary and have seen it all. I think it strongly depends on whom and where you source your honey from
Thanks for making this
Thanks for making this 👍
*Create a Better World by...........................Living Vegan*
Trolling the trolls🙏🙏
Yes Louis.
😇♥️🎶
🙋
Human beings are natural omnivores
@@renupunjabi9482
😇♥️🎶
Presumably a lot of commercial food plants are pollinated by these artificialy managed and bred bees. Almonds in the US being a well known example. Hives are driven around the country on semitrailers to different farms. So I guess everyone, vegans and meat eaters alike should be asking questions on how our crops are pollinated. Honey is just the beginning. We need to have an education push on how our plant based food is farmed/pollinated too..I'm guilty of not always knowing when I buy groceries. I'm also vegan
You can take a honey from local small producers. Not all honey comes from commercial industry. In my town we have three beekeepers and they do not do to bees what is described in the video. Simple said, If I eat honey I do not need to be automatically supporter of these practices. The beekepers I know do not do anything from what is described in the video. This video is biased and what I am missing here is a common sense. You could make a video how bees will thrive without the work of beekeepers when we leave them alone. Thanks.
Exploitation is exploitation, stop being an animal abuser
@@RainbowCugayou didn’t really answer him
Where do they get the queen be to start their hive?
And how do you ethical steal from someone? Bees make honey for bees not for us it is their food, it keeps them warm, and it protects them from predators why would you want to eat honey when you can easily eat maple syrup or something else! Would you like it if someone took your front door almost all your food if not all your food, and your ac/insulation on the walls?
Could we please get a link to this study? I'd like to study it.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190626160339.htm
Craig Bell
1 second ago
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-27591-y
One thing I never understood was why vegans fail to eat honey. I must admit, I always thought if anything, it was more helpful to eat honey, as to support the bees, but after watching this video I totally get it and understand. These past few months I’ve been seriously trialing a plant based lifestyle and the more videos I watch - like this one - and books I read, the more pumped and excited I am to be vegan. Amazing video, as usual!
I've considered myself plant-based for almost 4 years now but in that time continued to consume honey (hence why I don't call myself vegan). The reason for this was, as was stated in the video, I was under the assumption that we needed to support the industry that bred bees because populations were in decline and that could have a detrimental impact on ecosystems. 4 years of ignorance has been corrected after watching a 6 minute video, and I will no longer consume or support the honey industry. Thank you for the effort you put into making this.
They even exhibit pessimism? Well jeez, I know the feeling, bees. Can't say I blame ya
Very good. I always learn something new, even as a beekeeper's child. I have never heard of the industrial practices you explain at the beginning, but the arguments still stand.
Comparing honeybees to "wild bees" seems a bit off, there a plenty of wild honeybees around, consider referring to them as bumble and solitary bee species. Aside from that, it is certainly possible to keep bees naturally, chemical/treatment free and without any feeding (sugar) yet still attain a sizeable honey crop while still leaving enough food stores for the bees themselves. Natural beekeeping is perfectly sustainable and has been practiced around the world for thousands of years, the problem comes from large-scale commercial farming and lack of proper education on the subject.
I am just a beginner beekeeper so take what i say with a grain of salt.
Jason Schuele exactly!
@Amanley Load Honeybees are more aggressive than some native wildbees, competing with them and demolishing their populations. The increase of use honeybees has demolished wild bee populations. And any type of bee roaming around people would literally be no problem at all if people didn't bother them.
@@cvandeleur depends on the location. Honeybees are native to europe so they didn't ruin any populations of wild bees here and the argument becomes invalid.
What an amazing video! Thank you for making it.
...because a spoonful of honey is a lifetime of work for a bee. #NoExploitationIsTooSmall
and it HELPS the Bees you utter imbecile who knows NOTHING about Bee Keeping. Bees are honey making machines, they never stop. They would fill all their combs with honey, with no room for new brood if we didn't take it. Result, dead Bees once the old ones die. By taking the excess, we are literally doing them a favour, leaving fresh empty combs for them to breed new Bees. It's one of the most symbiotic relationships we have with nature. Not only that, we can treat them for Varroa mites when they happen, lowering Bee deaths dramatically. THAT is what caused the Bee decline problem in the first place and Bee Keepers are what ended it and brought their numbers back up.
@@MrBilld75 Why do you think they produce excess honey? Would they produce so much excess if they were kept in the wild, or weren't artificially bred?
@@rainonedavid3564 Yes, Bees are honey making machines, they never stop, so they would fill hives regardless. The delusion of Vegan imbeciles is that we shouldn't farm honey, but were it not for Beekeepers, you'd have NO Bees and plant foods now, that's the hard reality.
The Bee decline a few years ago (and is still a challenge) was reversed and brought back to healthy numbers PRECISELY BECAUSE of Bee Keepers. Without them, where is the chemical treatment of their hives to kill the Varroa mites which were infecting them? It wasn't GMO or Neonic pesticides killing them or any other evidence lacking nonsense people claimed.
It was Varroa mites responsible for most of it and we can solve that rather simply in a way that doesn't harm Bees, but it is something humans have to do, the Bees cannot. Meanwhile the Vegans suck back Agave nectar as an alternative, killing long nose Bats. Vegan irony is great and bites them in their stupid asses constantly. Lol. This is what happens when you become a blind, brainwashed, feckless Vegan cultist.
@@MrBilld75 "were it not for Beekeepers, you'd have NO Bees" Okay, explain how wild bees survive. We're not farming them so by your logic they should all be dead.
@@blahdelablah Not talking about those Bees, you dishonest fool. I am talking about the Bee decline issue that was so widely talked about, good grief, be honest for once in your life. Beekeepers helped the decline recover, period and proven. Grow a brain, you pathetic fool. We'd have no pollinating Bees for crops, stupid.
spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/news/2019/06/19/bee-keepers-working-to-save-declining-bee-populations
This was extremely helpful!!! Although I stopped eating honey when I turned vegan I was never deeply convinced of why I shouldn't and now I am! so grateful for this video
Don't listen to this video look up actual bee keeper videos none of these practices are widely used the vast majority of honey is vegan friendly and ethically done, been keepers so everything they can to keep their hives health and long living
Really well explained and mentioning a lot of facts but I have some questions.
You say that honey bees harm the other type of bees, but at the same time say that certain types of bees pollinate certain types of plants/flowers.
doesn't that mean they don't harm each other?
Also, as someone who works with beekeeping as a hobby, I can say from experience that not all honey farmers use these methods and there are more ethical ways to farm honey, such as
- only extracting honey in July and leaving the rest of the months for the bees to gather honey for the winter,
- moving the bees to indoor storage during winter to ensure the survival of the bees during harsher winters
- not clipping wings and instead of checking up on hives and in case they have a queen cell, placing that in another hive avoids swarming and grows into another colony.
Bees do feel pain individually, but at the same time bees don't act like other types of mammals, they are all connected as a hive mind, doing what they deem would be most beneficial to the colony.
Yes, sometimes some bees get squeezed and die during extraction and maybe 10 bees die when you do it, but a colony has more 20-80k bees meaning the overall bee population doesn't get hurt from that loss.
Also, in the video, you say that bees harm plants by not pollinating and instead just bringing pollen back to the hive instead of bringing it to other plants, but to my knowledge, having bees increase crop yield, so saying it doesn't seem weird, I know companies here in Sweden ask bee-keepers to place their colonies near their farms to increase yield, and if a vegan lifestyle takes over globally I also feel that bees will help reduce the amount of farmland and help drive down the cost of agriculture which will benefit everyone.
As an ending, I am trying to become vegan, I'm having some difficulties fully committing to it but am eating mostly vegan and I know that's not popular, but even when I become fully vegan I don't believe I will stop working with bees as I feel it still has a beneficial place in a vegan society.
I think you meant "like other animals " not, "like other mammals" because bees aren't mammals.
What do you call vegans who still eat honey? BEEgans.
maple syrup . we have maple syrup.
This video isn't a good resource.
@@chickpea734 Ok. How does maple syrup polinate f.e. orchards or colza fields? Please enlighten me.
It's so depressing. I won't go near honey or support it. People argue that honey is healthy for you. But at what expense?
Life is suffering. every life form is out to eat each other in some way or another. I do my part by not having children. I want to eat meat like a cat would like to eat meat. Where can I get it without causing animal suffering? Is hunting ok? Cats hunt.
All of this also applies to beeswax, found in many cosmetics and creams, lipbalms, candles and so on. Often listed in Latin in ingredients lists, as "Cera alba", or I've seen it also listed as "Cera flava".
Alot of what you mention in the first half of the video about bee keeping methods is likley from extreme methods of farming used to put products on shelves in supermarkets not for small, local farmers.
I've never seen a local farmer use any of these methods like wing clipping,artifical insemination, killing for the winter, bin-bag deaths or the like.
Killing the queen is usually done to save the whole hive E.g. if she is defective at laying eggs (e.g. only lays drone bees) as putting a new queen, or letting the hive raise a new queen is better for them than keeping the old queen.
Killing a hive for its temperment is usually if the bees are incredibly aggressive and pose a threat to wildlife, pets or other people that may get close. It's usually a last resort. A keeper may attempt to swap out the hive's queen with a more docile one, which over time can turn the hive more docile too.
Ethical bee keeping would be checking the hives regularlly for swarm cells to minimise risks of swarming, instead of clipping wings.
Understanding when the hive's might need help or when harvesting honey shouldnt be done. (drought can lead to less flower growth, so less honey to make). A good bee keeper can recognise when to let bees keep any honey they make as a food source for the winter, usually only excess is harvested or midway through the year so bees can still make more honey ready for winter. Some people even bring their bee boxes inside.
I support the growth of veganism but spreading misinformation/ not being specific enough about industry vs local, i feel just puts a bad light on it.
Especially when I recognised multiple clips in this video that were used out of context to promote the cause, all from ethical and small bee keepers that like to post clips on youtube to educate people about bee keeping.
YES. Exactly. Small scale beekeeping can easily be ethical for the simple reason that its very expensive and time consuming to the point that most people wouldn’t even attempt it except for a fascination and appreciation of bees. I have taken a 3 day beekeeping course and have met many master beekeepers who shared their knowledge and host community classes. They love their bees like their children and most of this information does not apply to them in the slightest.
What also bothers me is this idea that nature is gentle and beautiful and perfect and we humans can only ruin it. I think that happens often so we apply it to everything. But bees are violent and lead violent lives. Queens kill competing baby queens constantly. Male drones are abandoned to die outside the hives before winter every year because they no longer serve a purpose for breeding and more will be hatched in the spring. Yellow jackets and wasps often destroy entire hives, beheading the bees and eating the brood. Bee colonies regularly attack and kill other colonies to steal their young and overtake their hives. Entire hives can be destroyed by pesticides sprayed on crops which is a huge problem where I live for apiaries. Hobbyist beekeepers can offer a life that can be less painful and short than even nature can. I wish this video were more balanced with regards to the thousands of private beekeepers.
I completely see your point, and thank you for commenting and bringing it up.
I think it’s important to be factual about everything that can affect our environment, and also when sentient creatures are hurt.
Unfortunately I think we can agree that most honey consumers get their honey from large supermarkets - and that’s a problem, as you seem to agree?
This is primarily why people need to be educated about the consequences of those purchases and maybe as you said, encouraged to turn to local bee keepers. This could eventually run the risks of some bee keepers growing to such a scale, again, that’s more detrimental than beneficial - simply due to demand.
We are all in this together after all and we need to put our brains together.
Local or not we dont need honey so why do it
@@zartadavid2900 we don’t *need* a lot of stuff
You're effectively using the local farms argument. You're still exploiting an animal, for a product we don't need to eat in order to make money and the animal is detrimental to local ecosystems.
Thank you for this video, as a backyard beekeeper I think there is a big difference between the commercial practices and the "amateurs" as in any agricultural industry.
Bees are absolutely amazing animals and fascinating. Their complex social structure and communication is mind blowing.
I do not clip queen wings and my bees can swarm away whenever they feel like (and they will fly away if not content!). It is my goal to keep them happy and healthy so they do not leave and will focus on collecting honey to the point that they make more than they need (as they do since they are always working).
Farmers in The Netherlands plant narrow strips of wildflowers between mono-crops, I think this helps all pollinators and supports healthy ecosystems, a rising tide lifts all ships.
Thanks for being vegan!
I’m sure you care about your bees but where do you buy your queen from to start the hive?
I love bees, so I support them! Not by paying for them to be exploited, but by planting flowers and helping any tired bees out with some sugar water.
Same.
Vegans are so frustrating...
It's bad enough that you have to spend an extra two hours making a separate starter, main and dessert for some annoying prick who's only going to spend the entire meal turning their nose up and making faces at all the other guests eating the same lovingly prepared meal which does, rightly, contain meat and dairy.
My brother is a vegan...
Not for dietary reasons but for "ethical reasons"...
But always has the latest iPhone, drives an electric car and occasionally "cheats for convenience" when vegan food isn't available... But refuses to "cheat" when someone has prepared a family meal for 11 other people...
F*cking vegans!
arrrrgh!
I was wondering about this earlier today because I was offered a jar of honey but took a jar of fig preserves instead. As always, thanks for the information, Ed!
Ironically figs most likely have dead bees inside of them since som bees lay their eggs inside of figs but the larvae (the male ones) don’t always leave the fig!
Smuf Zetta 😩 Thanks for informing me 😅
Smuf Zetta only certain species of organic figs, almost all figs you buy at the store either aren’t compatible with wasps or are grown inside to prevent wasps laying eggs. Either way, at least we aren’t intentionally trying to use and kill those wasps as we do bees
Since I'm vegan 10 years, I feel OK bailing out of these videos when the gruesome stuff starts.
Thank you, this is such an informative video that I wish everyone would watch.
Nobody should take this serious, this is some serious misinformation at best.
You cannot exploit nature without violence.
- Eisel Mazard.
I assume you don't exploit nature then.
@@matthewdennis1739
Matthew, everyone exploits nature… even the Vegans.
The thing is, by being Vegan, whatever Jeremy Clarkson has told you, you reduce that exploitation to its absolute minimum… less than ten percent of the average "SADer".
When I'm out with friends who smoke, I can't avoid passive smoking, but I'm NOT going to start back on the cigarettes again.
I can't avoid traffic fumes when out on my bike, but for some strange reason, I don't put my mouth up to various exhaust pipes and start inhaling.
Y'dig?
😉
And virtually none of this applies to local small scale production. Huge amounts of misinformation.
This is so sad to see. They've taken the absolute extremes and call it common place. This is hit piece and pure propaganda.
All honey farmers steal honey from bees which they make for themselves so that they can earn a living and make a profit.
@@thatveganmuslim bees create excess honey
I keep bees and do none of the things you describe, never killed one.
That's great. There's a big difference though between domestic hives and big industrial honey business.
Most of these videos focus on the extremes. The real problem is corporate farming generally. But because the largest and most powerful farming industries of all animal by-products are SUPER extreme, we have to shape our advocacy to counteract that.
+
Even the best save the bees efforts that beekeepers make often don't do enough to promote the populations of non-honey bees (the ones who are better pollinators and who the planet most needs). Do you have suggestions for non-beekeepers to promote healthy populations of non-honey bees? I'd love to know more
You probably still do all the harmful effects on local native bees described in the second half of the video tho. Unless you somehow keep them fully enclosed.
You don't exploit them for what they produce. By taking the food they make for themselves??
We come to an arrangement
One way in order to avoid honey bees outcompeting native bees is to plant wildflowers which are native to your area. The leading cause to bee declines in the UK is because since world war 2 we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows. This increases competition between species as they are all fighting over a few individual plant species. If you increase the amount of plant species in your garden, you can help the native bees
I didnt know about this. Will cut out honey. Thank you as always Ed!!!!
I've been wanting to find good sources of information about this for a while. Can you show some pointers or links to where you found out about the negative implications on the ecosystem?
The best way I figure for humans to "fix" nature and it's balance is to just f-ing leave things alone! "She'll" come back on her own.
I actually agree with this comment so much!!! All of our “fixing” does more harm than good. Nature will recover if we leave well enough alone.
Mmm, no. Miss me with that nature mysticism. We've already meddled when we brought invasive species. Leave things alone and the midwest will be overrun by tumbleweeds, for example.
As a vegan, I feel we should leave meat eaters alone and let them do what they want. I can understand why meat eater hate us vegan now... always nagging at them to be vegan. Like just leave them alone!
Patrick Di Salvo far removed from nature ? Because buying a packaged piece of factory farmed meat from Asda is very natural 😂😂
@Patrick Di Salvo I love how all of a sudden all these things are only the fault of vegans now. Enjoy your nihilism I guess since it seems like absolute perfection means free reign to not take the first step.
Save the bees by letting animals be.
and by protecting their natural habitat
This video is pure propaganda. If you're interested in actually learning more, there are literally millions of hours of beekeeping videos on RUclips. Please don't make assumptions based on 6 and a half minutes of biased information.
And here I was before watching this video thinking honey was natural and good to buy. Now I feel a bit guilty.
You don't have to. This video is bs.
Hi, fellow vegan here:) the only thing I wish you would mention, is slovenian beekeeping culture. Slovenia is the country, which really cares for wellbeing of bees.
I live in Utah & am fortunate to have met 3 beekeepers within the last two years & none of them cull their colonies because it's pretty easy to maintain them over winter. Some beekeepers do choose to use sugar syrups through the entire winter but many leave enough honey for the hive to last through winter & if the winter endures they will then supplement with a sugar syrup. None of the studies available done on the effect of sugar syrup have indicated conclusively a positive or negative affect on bees themselves. The jury is still out on whether it causes harm or if it helps, or if it's a neutral affect. Another thing, bees aren't native to North America - wild colonies tend to die out in half the time of kept populations for this reason alone they typically fair far worse in winter.
Nowhere in this video did you mention the conflict of the "no harm" ethos when it comes to honey substitutes which would allow for a more fully rounded discussion on the ethics & alternatives of honey so people can decide for themselves. Such as how agave harvesting is directly linked to destroying bats natural habitats thus decimating the populations just for what, the demand for commercial sweeteners? Or the high climate impact of rice syrup? Or the amount of food that solely exist due to our reliance on commercial beekeeping? Are you not going to eat cucumbers, blueberries, peaches, watermelon, zucchinis etc & so on because they are pollinated by commercial bee populations? Or almonds in California that require over half the bee population in the US to be shipped there in order for their production? What about all the rodents & birds that die as a part of machine harvesting? At what point do you stop eating all the foods that use kept bee populations to pollinate? If you don't eat organic are you no longer vegan because we know there is a science backed correlation between pesticide use & the mass die-off of bees? At what point are you *actually causing less harm in your food choices vs you just not liking the idea of something & choose an alternative that is far worse for the environment or causing issues for other animals?
Also, it's weird to me the amount of focus that is put on whether honey is vegan or not and yet nobody wants to talk about the glaring negative impact of agave harvesting. How is that causing less harm? Why is that not under further scrutiny? Or the amount of vegan recipes using cashews without mentioning the ethics of cashew harvesting when they range from burns to blindness of the harvesters who are also not paid a living wage. Also the lack of conversation about how much positive impact can be done just by eating local & buying local.
No one replied to your excellent post, so I will. I get the honey thing. The argument presented is that honey production is cruel and there ... the argument is suspended. The primary reason for these bees is to increase the productivity of commercial crops like apples and almonds, by like 40%, they are shipped around the country for this very purpose? Therefore the same argument must apply to apples and almonds or any commercially grown fruit?
Sadly, no one ever responds when you rationally challenge their echo chamber.
Great points, but vegans choose to ignore them because introspection would lead to cognitive dissonance.
I've always had a hard time explaining to other people why I don't eat honey and I've even eaten honey that's been given to me as a gift. This video has given me the information I need to 1) not eat honey again and 2) inform my friends and family about why eating honey isn't a positive action. I had no idea that the bee keeping industry was so bad.
humans are apex predators vegans kill billions of animals with crop farming earthling ed eats meat off camera and gets paid from world economic forum to spread disinfo propaganda humans are CARNIVORE by physiology
This video is mostly inaccurate or outdated as most honey is not harvested this way as it's a horribly inefficient way to make honey. Don't get all the info from a single video when there's hundreds of bee videos from dozens to hundreds of bee keepers around the world showing how hives are kept and honey is harvested and spoiler alert, none of the shit in this video is in those videos because only an insane billionaire would operate so unethically.
Plus vegans destroy the environment with agave and almonds