Ok first of all I’m not getting at anyone and I’m not targeting anyone in this post, I’m just setting facts straight. I have seen and heard some absolutely ridiculous information coming from SOME Vegans with regards to beekeeping, as well as being personally attacked for keeping bees and “destroying the bee population”. Just because someone made a picture with “facts” on doesn’t mean it's true, I’m shocked we are living in 2023 and some of you are still taking some social media posts as bible without doing any fact checking!! However, that being said not all vegans share this frame of mind, some vegans do in fact eat honey.
First things first a bee doesn’t bring back nectar put it in the comb and then die, bees will come and go bringing pollen and nectar during their adult life, bees die because of the elements, because of old age and because of pests and diseases NOT because they made honey. Beekeepers are VITAL to the survival of British honeybees, we have very few true wild colonies if any in the UK, and this is for many reasons mostly loss of habitat and the other big factor is pests and diseases. Honeybees in hives over time will keep building into the same comb, this gets dirty and the cells can start to lose their shape, as beekeepers our biggest responsibility is managing pests and diseases and dirty comb needs replacing.
Honey production happens regardless of if we take it away or not, if they keep collecting honey and we keep giving them space to put it our hives would look like skyscrapers, this would run the risk of being blown over in strong winds etc, it's not viable and a strong colony can produce 3-4 times more honey than it needs. So hear me out vegans, my bees are my world, they have worked so hard to collect that honey, I’m not about to throw it in the bin because it's an animal product, I’m going to celebrate their hard work and share it with other people.
Now what I will say like any industry there are some seriously irresponsible people out there that don't keep bees for the right reasons, they will take too much honey and will often feed bees sugar water to meet the demand for honey, it's all about ethics but not all beekeepers are bad. Some vegans are now getting on board with local beekeepers learning the process and properly educating themselves and some of them have even started eating honey, we are a fully transparent business and we invite anyone who is anti-beekeeping and anti-honey to come check out the process and learn all about these amazing creatures who without beekeepers would be virtually non-existent in the UK.
Producing alternatives to cow's milk such as almond milk is far more detrimental to honeybees than taking spare honey off a hive, the almond industry has and is exploiting bees left right and centre. If you drink almond milk but won't eat honey because it's an animal product, please please do some research or speak to someone like myself who can pass on the correct information to you, memes are not facts 🤘🏼🐝
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