“Why not honey?”

Because honey is the bees' own food, and harvesting it can cost them their health.

Bees are animals too, and veganism is about not using animals as far as is possible and practicable. Honey is one of the easiest places to apply that.

Honey is the bees’ food

Bees don’t make honey for us. It is their energy store — what keeps the colony alive through bad weather and winter. A single bee makes only about a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its whole life.

What harvesting it involves

• Replacing their food. When honey is taken, beekeepers often feed the colony sugar syrup instead, which lacks the nutrients that honey gives them.
• Clipping queens. Queens often have their wings clipped so they can’t leave the hive.
• Breeding. Selective breeding narrows the bees’ gene pool, which makes them more vulnerable to disease.
• Culling. Some hives are culled after the harvest to save the cost of keeping them through winter.

Not every beekeeper does all of these, but taking the bees’ food for ourselves is the point of keeping bees for honey.

Easy swaps

Maple syrup, date syrup, rice syrup or molasses work almost everywhere honey does — in tea, on porridge, in baking.

Saying it at the table

“Honey is what bees make to feed themselves through the winter. I’d rather leave it to them — maple syrup does the job.”

Something wrong or unclear on this page? Tell me