Most raw foodists and environmentalists, along with those hypocritical "bee-gans" (rhymes with "vegans"), seem to think it's natural and ethical to exploit bees for honey, pollen, royal jelly and propolis. But claiming to care about healthy living, and condemning unjust and unsustainable practices, means refusing to exploit other animals in any form, and ending the cruelty that exploitation always produces. If you're not vegan, your actions mimic the hateful ideology and crass behavior of the racists, sexists and heterosexists you claim to despise!
The bee industry is mean and murderous. Without exception, all apiaries ORDER queen bees from an insect breeder as worker bees will not vomit (produce honey) if a queen isn't living in their community. When the queen arrives in the mail in a ventilated box, beekeepers rip off her wings to prevent her from flying away. Apiaries are not enclosed facilities. Along with boiling lobsters alive, stealing newborn calves from mother cows, throwing live male chicks into a rendering machine, and shoving steel poles down the throats of geese and ducks to force-feed them, mutilating the wings of bees is one of the cruelest acts humans intentionally inflict on animals.
As the two videos on this page demonstrate, if given a chance, bees will use THEIR vomit as hive insulation, and food for themselves and for their babies! When bee communities no longer produce huge amounts of quality honey, they're killed off, new communities are created by the beekeepers, and the process starts all over again. Executing unproductive animals is the same standard protocol used by the dairy and egg industries when they murder unprofitable cows and hens. If you consume or use bee products, you are stealing something that does not belong to you, meaning bee exploiters are just as evil as meat-eaters who could care less about any animal, and vegetarians who continue to harm cows and calves for milk, and commodify hens for eggs.
Because all bee products also contain sugar, animal protein and fat, they are unequivocally unhealthy even when labeled "organic," "raw," or "local." "Buying local" seems to be the latest gimmick that places a halo around people who support the enslavement and murder of animals. I agree with the "buying local" philosophy when fruits, vegetables and other plant products are at play. But purchasing products made from locally enslaved animals is just as insane and immoral as buying them from afar. (Moreover, why does the "buying local" way of life only apply to foods? I've noticed that these folks don't mind spending money on computers, cell phones, TV sets, furniture, clothes, cars and other materialistic items from companies located in other states or countries.)
In case I haven't proven beyond a reasonable doubt how unethical and unnatural it is to consume bee products, think about this: If you were hiking through the woods and came across a hive, would you stick your hand inside and scoop out some honey, or catch some bees mid-air and stroke the pollen from their hair-thin legs? If you did, you'd be stung without mercy. So when does the "natural" part come into play?
Whether you're motivated by ethics, environmental concerns or health, and you choose to eat raw, cooked, organic, conventional or junk, being 100-percent vegan is the only thing that matters! If you're looking for something that mimics the taste and texture of honey, buy agave nectar, yacon syrup, bee-free honee, or rice-based honey.
The following brief by T.C. Fry (Life Science Health System) will offer some more insight about honey's unhealthiness:
“It is, of course, true that honey is a wonderful food—for bees! The popularly fostered idea among health seekers that honey is a wholesome, nutritious and natural sweet for humans is fallacious. Honey is the product of the bee’s stomach. The bee ingests pollen from flowers and, in its stomach, mixes it with formic, manite and other acids. Then the honey is deposited in cone cells and, by the wind created by a multitude of bees wings, substantially dehydrated. Without these acids and the drying, honey would readily ferment and prove unusable for the bee which must have a dependable food supply for up to eight months in some of the harsher climates. Because of these acids and dehydration, honey is impregnable to bacteria. It is rather poisonous in the human digestive tract.
As a food for us honey is woefully mineral and vitamin deficient. Humans require infinitely more food factors than bees. While honey contains several very desirable sugars, these have been rendered toxic by the protective acids imparted to them by the bees. These acids are the bees’ preservatives. Humans do not have the enzymes to break these acids down, as have the bees, and must rob their bodies of vital base-forming minerals to neutralize the acids. When humans eat honey, it immediately begins to reabsorb moisture from the stomach and stomach flora. It destroys our symbiotic bacterial population wholesale. Several tablespoons of honey makes most people very sick. In humans honey, more so than cane and beet sugars, is acid-forming and decalcifying. The body draws calcium from its teeth and bones, if necessary, to neutralize the acids introduced and formed.
Manite acid of honey is a protoplasmic poison. It interacts with protein and from this, forms alcohol, ammonia and carbonic acid. As eaten, honey is an atrocious food. It is usually added to starches and proteins as a sweetener. It readily ferments when held up in the stomach with other longer-digesting foods. The byproducts alcohol, ammonia and carbonic acid are deleterious to human health. Honey is, therefore, neither a nutritious nor a safe food.”
By the way, since a large portion of the almond industry hires bee-enslavers to bring millions of these insects to their farms for pollination, many people wonder if it’s okay to consume almonds. First, almonds are always vegan, so enjoy them always. Second, bees need no help pollinating. There were almonds long BEFORE there was a bee pollination industry for hire, and there will be almonds long AFTER this industry is destroyed. In the same psychotic way McDonald’s has sold its “products” to the world, or Coca Cola sold its fluid, the bee pollination industry simply SOLD its “product” to the almond folks et al. It is, sadly, another money-making business built on the backs of animals. Third, it might come as a surprise to everyone, but wasps and hornets are pollinators too, along with bats, hummingbirds, beetles, and many others. Are they not responsible for any almond pollination? How does one know if the almonds they’re eating didn’t come from the aforementioned beings, or the bees enslaved in the pollination industry? One more thing to consider: Why isn’t there a mobile pollination industry that brings wasps or hornets to almond farms? It’s because the pollination INDUSTRY picked bees to be THEIR victims many years ago in the same way the egg industry picked hens to be their victims (many other creatures lay eggs but there isn’t a crocodile egg industry).
PLEASE NOTE: The above drawing by Anita Sidler was created solely for the ADAPTT site and cannot be used under any circumstances without Sidler’s permission.