Bees and veganism

I prefer not to think of it as exploitation though, just another part of the complexity of the food chain.

If you dig potatoes out of the ground you are inadvertently killing and maiming lost of insects that live in the ground and are part of the process of growing potatoes.

What's the difference?

 

Inadvertence vs. intention.

 

Apparently the honey is food for the bee larvae, so it's their kids' sustenance. That's what I heard once. I'm not entirely certain.

I'm a former vegan. Back in my more militant days I'd have gone into a long lecture about bee society and not over-exploiting nature and all the rest of it. I do of course still think we should farm in a considerate, sensible way, with moderation and ethics. However, this is honey, and these are bees. We are apes. If we can jab a stick into a hive and get the most delicious and nutritious foodstuff, we'll do it. That's nature. Slaughtering a cow or a pig is massively different. These are insects.

I don't really like honey that much so I haven't eaten it on its own in years, but I would if I fancied it. There comes a point where you have to accept our nature as apes, accept our nutritional needs, and accept that insects are getting killed in their billions no matter what we do to survive.

Then there are the positives of honey production, like increased pollenation of crops and flowers surrounding the hives, which is great for us and for other animals.

 

So in the case of potatoes, for example, we are "inadvertently" killing some insects in the process because we're "inadvertently" growing potatoes, but with honey we are "intentionally" harming some of them?

There is no fundamental difference that I can see, other than the fact bees are cute little fluffy creatures we all love and creepy crawly soily insects aren't so much.

And as for the argument that we are depriving bees of their natural food source, that may be true to an extent, but so are we when we grow other foods.

If we didn't harvest the potatoes they would rot in the ground, and other insects would consume them as part of the whole cycle of life, but by taking them out of the ground and eating them ourselves we are depriving some species of insect of their natural food source. OTOH we are then supplying other species of insect with their food source when we then excrete the food we eat back into the soil (or the sewage plant as is the case these days)

So whilst the argument that farming bees for honey may be cruel to varying extents, I still see it as a fundamentally flawed and specist argument.

Farming livestock is different, but so long as the animals are treated humanely I don't have a problem with it.

Hunting animals for food though is in our nature, and something we have done for thousands of years, as have other predatory creatures.

I'd much rather there was no suffering as a result of all the creatures feeding themselves as well, but that's just not the way it is.

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p.s. FTR I am a vegetarian of 16 years.

 

I will first admit that my knowledge of bees is really limited. But having said that, based on what I've been reading the problem is our cell phones. Our cell signals confuse bees and cause them to both loose track of where their hives are and stop responding to their queen.

And a bee extinction is really bad for humanity. Bees are responsible for the bulk (more than 80%) of our planetary food production. In short, if the bees go... We all go.

 

I thought the jury was still out on that?

I think that most species are in decline at the moment (apart from human beings) probably as a result of many factors.

If there is anything we can do to stop the decline in bee population though I'd like to hope we do it, because I fucking love bees! (and I kinda need those little buzy bodies to keep on making bee pollen)

 

The jury is only still out on it because of the impact this would have on an already unstable world economy. Can you imagine the loss of money in phone sales, calling plans, tech research, etc? Not to mention the impact it would have on various militaries, police forces and business that depend on cell phones for day to day activities.

But the impact on the cell phone problem has been given to a UN committee and from what I've read, it's got a priority rating that's pretty high on the list. And this problem is also being discussed in some pretty weird places too... Places that you wouldn't expect to be worried about a possible bee problem, such as the IMF and NATO.

This bee problem becomes the stuff of conspiracy theories when you see just who is interested in it. I won't try and compose any theories but I will say that when see just who is taking an active interest in this problem. You can't help but notice that there is obviously something they know that we don't. Therefore as far as I'm concerned, it's a fact that cell phones are responsible.

 

a few rural cell phones are worse than putting the hives on flatbed trailers and hauling them hundreds [or thousands] of miles away?

 

Apparently so.

But there are also many other factors. Cell phones appear to just be the largest culprit of CCD. (Colony Collapse Disorder)

This video talks in such a way it might appear to be a conspiracy theory. The information is sound in this video is sound. Even if the comments offer no proof about Mansanto and Bayer doing this deliberately for profits.


[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St8nnQ6PqBQ

And this video here will explain how how to pollinate without bees. The only problem is the level of work needed is insane and mass famines are going to happen regardless of our best efforts.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUvQ_U5I3oU&feature=fvst

 

"So long as my cotton-picking slaves are treated humanely I don't have a problem with it."

I won't bother with your other rationalizations, as I am sure you have heard the refutations as often as I have given them. But no one has addressed my point above.

You've got some nerve calling MY argument speciesist! The ONLY reason that human slavery is considered unacceptable and animal slavery is considered acceptable is speciesism. I reject the speciesism that you embrace.

 

I thought I did. If you can't see the logic in what I'm saying there's nowt much either of us can say.

Eating or rearing animals humanely is not specism, although perhaps choosing to eat cows and not dogs perhaps can be considered to be. Trying to argue that there is no inadvertent/intentional cruelty to lower life forms when farming other vegan food sources, whereas with bees there is, strikes me of being a somewhat specist view based on our love for bees and our instinctive revulsion towards insects that live in the soil.

 

You are missing my point entirely. I don't doubt that we'll eventually have to agree to differ, but I want you to understand what I am saying before I drop it.

If, as you say, the issue is cruelty, then why is exploitation of human slaves morally wrong even if they are well-treated? This is a double standard, based on species. It is okay to exploit non-humans, but not okay to exploit humans. Hence, speciesism.

My position is not that we cause no harm to creatures when we eat vegan food, but that it equally wrong to exploit animals as it is to exploit humans. I am not exploiting an earthworm, even if I accidentally harm it when digging my potatoes.

 

I wasn't saying anything about human slavery, you are the one who brought that up.

Agree to differ...? I hate that term. It's a cop out, but I guess it's what we are going to have to settle on.

 

And the cop-out is evading that topic. I brought it up because it illustrates the speciesism of your viewpoint, and it illustrates the central issue of mine. Without addressing it, you cannot understand my viewpoint.

Perhaps you are not interested in doing so. Which is why agreeing to differ is not a cop-out, but merely a recognition of the limits of dialogue when someone is not willing to understand the other's point of view.

 

Don't talk to me about copping out. What do you want me to repeat my argument in different ways until you get it, or I concede that you are right?

I understand your view point fine and I respect it, I don't know what it is about my argument that you fail to get yourself though.

Let's leave it at that, honey bunch.

 

Bullshit.

Summarize my argument, to convince me that you understand it. I don't care if you agree with it, and I don't expect you to concede that I am right. But, since you haven't addressed it at all, I have to conclude that you didn't understand it, unless you show me otherwise.

And, to show that I back up what I say, I will summarize your point of view, as I understand it. You believe that the central issue is whether or not cruelty is involved. Since veganism also involves cruelty to animals (whether inadvertent or not), it has no advantage.

 

So what, now you want me to rewrite your argument differently?

What happened to agreeing to disagree?

I didn't say anything about anything I said a "central issue" and the second thing, no not really either + I don't quite know what you are saying. Perhaps we should just stick to saying what we think, rather that what the "other person" thinks.

This all boils down to the fact you're lifelong held views of what it means to be ethical has been challenged by my logical and interpretation.

Now let it lie before this thread turns into Billy Smart's Circus

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra9P0bd6IaA

3m15s in

 

In your dreams, buddy.

 

Have some (stolen) bee facts:

1. The honey bee has been around for millions of years.
2. Honey bees, scientifically also known as Apis mellifera, are environmentally friendly and are vital as pollinators.
3. It is the only insect that produces food eaten by man.
4. Honey is the only food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water; and it's the only food that contains "pinocembrin", an antioxidant associated with improved brain functioning.
5. Honey bees have 6 legs, 2 compound eyes made up of thousands of tiny lenses (one on each side of the head), 3 simple eyes on the top of the head, 2 pairs of wings, a nectar pouch, and a stomach.
6. Honey bees have 170 odorant receptors, compared with only 62 in fruit flies and 79 in mosquitoes. Their exceptional olfactory abilities include kin recognition signals, social communication within the hive, and odor recognition for finding food. Their sense of smell was so precise that it could differentiate hundreds of different floral varieties and tell whether a flower carried pollen or nectar from metres away.
7. The honey bee's wings stroke incredibly fast, about 200 beats per second, thus making their famous, distinctive buzz. A honey bee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour.
8. The average worker bee produces about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
9. A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles, the equivalent of three orbits around the earth to collect 1 kg of honey.
10. It takes one ounce of honey to fuel a bee’s flight around the world.
11. A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.
12. The bee's brain is oval in shape and only about the size of a sesame seed, yet it has remarkable capacity to learn and remember things and is able to make complex calculations on distance travelled and foraging efficiency.
13. A colony of bees consists of 20,000-60,000 honeybees and one queen. Worker honey bees are female, live for about 6 weeks and do all the work.
14. The queen bee can live up to 5 years and is the only bee that lays eggs. She is the busiest in the summer months, when the hive needs to be at its maximum strength, and lays up to 2500 eggs per day.
15. Larger than the worker bees, the male honey bees (also called drones), have no stinger and do no work at all. All they do is mating.

16. Each honey bee colony has a unique odour for members’ identification. 17. Only worker bees sting, and only if they feel threatened and they die once they sting. Queens have a stinger, but they don’t leave the hive to help defend it.
18. It is estimated that 1100 honey bee stings are required to be fatal.
19. Honey bees communicate with one another by "dancing".
20. During winter, honey bees feed on the honey they collected during the warmer months. They form a tight cluster in their hive to keep the queen and themselves warm.

And a couple of bee quotes:

"Unique among all God's creatures, only the honeybee improves the environment and preys not on any other species." ~ Royden Brown
"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live?" ~ Albert Einstein

Food for thought, eh? So every teaspoon of honey is 12 bees' lifetimes.