I'll say up front I am NOT an expert. Most of my knowledge is gathered along the way and some of it is, I am sure, anecdotal. For instance, all bees you see out and flying about are female. They do all the work. Thus: worker bees. The men stay at home and service the queen. Drones. Bees are great. We cannot exist without them. They are the main pollinators of everything we eat. Try as we might, we as humans cannot possibly duplicate what bees do for our food supply. Here's the hardline from the vegan perspective: "In common with other animals kept to produce food products bees are farmed and manipulated, and the honey they produce for themselves is taken from them. Vegans do not eat products taken from any animal, including bees, because it is neither desirable nor necessary to exploit animals in order to obtain food for humans."
Exploit? Aren't you exploiting bees by simply eating ANYTHING? After all, they worked for it. They worked hard. I just want to know where the line is drawn. If you give bees a home on your property, is that expecting something from them in return, even if you aren't taking their honey? Keeping bees is a wonderful thing. I don't eat a lot of honey myself, but I would keep bees just to pollinate my garden. This, apparently, is not correct. I would be enslaving them. Again, I fail to see how providing creatures with a good place to live and benefiting from their labor is such a bad thing. It's symbiotic.
Honey and bee pollen is amazing for our health. Mother Nature provides something that is so good for us, but because commercial practices are bad, the whole thing is bad? I go back to the beekeepers I have known. They won't take more than they should, and they are very careful about everything. And I feel they know more about Nature and the ways of things than most "gimme processed soy product" vegangelicals. What if you are NOT exploiting them? What if you have that symbiotic relationship with them? Why is it still wrong? Commercial ANYTHING is pretty much bad, so can we take things case by case and quit overreacting to everything??
Bees need our help. They have problems. How many people know about Colony Collapse Disorder? I do. Beekeepers do. And they try to protect their hives. Isn't that a good thing? Or must all bees be free-range because of that whole expecting something from them thing? Wild bees are in trouble and keeping hives might help. So if it is said that no bees should be kept, yet they all dies because no bees were kept and protected, well then...
Say goodbye to your food. When the cannibalism hits because all plants are dead, certain people will go first.
Just sayin'. :)
You can tell me I'm full of crap and to quit picking on non-omnivores. Fine. I just want answers. Because this defies logic to me, and I want logic. Be logical and I will leave you alone. But right now, I just want answers. Anyone?
