Question Is honey vegan?

[Confused]

I'm very confused. Is honey vegan? Or not? Because I know a lady who says she's vegan and she eats honey. But then I've read somewhere else that honey isn't vegan, and it's unkind to the bees to take their honey.

Help!?

 

[Andy_T]

Hello, confused guest!

You ask a very good question.
Please take a look at the following link to better understand why honey is not vegan:
Why honey is not vegan

Whenever further such questions occur (e.g. relating to eggs, wool, silk, leather etc.) , there is also a rather simple rule-of-thumb, that I would like to share with you here:

 

[shyvas]

Vegan or not, who wants to eat bees vomit ?

 

[AeryFairy]

A post from Jimbobbob:

I thought that honey would be a vegan/vegetarian plus as regardless of meat eating or not bees are essential for crop pollination. I thought that vegetarians/vegans would want to increase the demand for honey thereby increasing the number of bees through managed hives therefore helping with pollination especialy on crops like strawberries that are increasingly being polonised solely by managed hives. The honey is mealy a by product and a way of keeping the hive in check and stopping it swarming

 

[Calliegirl]

 

[SuicideBlonde]

I am allergic to honey.

 

[Danielle]

I am allergic to honey.

What happens?
My sister knew a vegan who is allergic to honey

 

[Poppy]

I know that honey isn't vegan. I avoid honey at all times.

However given the dire situation of bees in the US, I wonder if there might be a way to support bee keepers and the bee industry without buying honey. Does anyone know, other than buying fruits and vegetables, of course, if there is a vegan acceptable way of encouraging the bee industry?

 

[Blobbenstein]

Does anyone know, other than buying fruits and vegetables, of course, if there is a vegan acceptable way of encouraging the bee industry?

I gather that it is wild bees that need encouraging(in the UK anyway), and these are often solitary bees.

People make or buy bee houses:

BBC - Breathing Places - Make a bee home or café

and put them in their gardens....solitary bees can lay their eggs in them and stock them with pollen for the larvae to eat.

 

[Calliegirl]

If I had a large property I wouldn't mind having a few hives and I wouldn't interfere with them at all. They would be left to themselves to do whatever they want to do.

 

[Poppy]

I couldn't have bees in my small yard. DH is allergic. I recently heard a beekeeper on NPR state that his business was in dire straits. Bee keepers can't keep bees alive, hives are failing, and the number of bees keeps dropping. He sends hives out to farms to pollinate crops, and he just can't supply enough bees because he can't lee his numbers up! It's an environmental disaster.

 

[Joe]

I'm very confused. Is honey vegan? Or not? Because I know a lady who says she's vegan and she eats honey. But then I've read somewhere else that honey isn't vegan, and it's unkind to the bees to take their honey.

Emphasis added.

First off, I am not a vegan and never have been one. I do not go around telling people "you are not a vegan," nanny-nanny-boo-boo!

But I slightly disagree with what many people have posted in this thread.

When the Vegan Society was formed in 1944, whether it was ok or not to eat honey was an open question. Within the first year of its existence, the Vegan Society took a vote on the question of honey, and the vote was that eating honey was not acceptable for vegans.

Andy_T cites an article from vegetus.org that says Donald Watson created the word vegan in 1944, and that this term "was defined" as follows, citing Stepaniak. But when was it defined? Stepaniak says she got the definition from the Vegan Society, but does not say when they formulated that definition--possibly long after the vote on the status of honey circa 1945.

So, that leaves a couple of questions in my mind.

First, if honey-eating is so obviously non-vegan, why did the Vegan Society need to vote on this issue?

Second, must a person agree with the Vegan Society in all things in order to call himself or herself a vegan?

I am not going to tell the OP's ladyfriend she is not a vegan and/or cannot call herself a vegan because she eats honey.
I am not going to tell her that honey-eating is ok for vegans, either.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I couldn't have bees in my small yard. DH is allergic.

you probably wouldn't take the risk but I thought I'd add:

Solitary bees are harmless and not aggressive. They rarely if ever sting unless trodden on or squashed between your fingers and they do not have painful stings like those of honeybees. They do not live in hives or build honeycombs, and they do not swarm.

How to Make a Bee Hotel

 

[Blobbenstein]

I hung a piece of wood with holes in, outside where I live, but someone nicked it...

 

[ledboots]

We have lots of wildflowers and some planted ones in the backyard, and there are lots of bees on them. Little tiny ones mostly, and they look like several different types of bees, different colors etc.

 

[Tom L.]

I'm rather fond of solitary bees, but I don't care for wasps of any sort, and there are quite a number of solitary wasps too.

You can usually tell the female solitary bees from wasps by the pollen they often carry on their back legs- they look a bit like they have saddlebags or chaps. (I don't think the males carry pollen). Some solitary bees are called "sweat bees" because they like to lap up sweat off people's skin; they're usually green or dark gray or blackish, and quite small.

I hung a piece of wood with holes in, outside where I live, but someone nicked it...

Who would steal a piece of wood with holes in it?....

 

[KLS52]

Who would steal a piece of wood with holes in it?....

I'm guessing if he put it there for the bees, whoever took it didn't want the bees congregating there? A close neighbor, perhaps...

 

[Blobbenstein]

no, I think it was just kids.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I only hung it on a hanging basket hook, in the carpark.

 

[Blobbenstein]

maybe this is controversial, but I think eating honey is more vegan than having an animal's testicles removed for non-medical reasons. Even if an animal is a rescue, the pet paradigm is being supported.