Can vegans eat honey? Is there any cruelty involved with obtaining honey?

Cruelty in the Honey Industry

Common practices in the honey industry are:

*To prevent the queen bee from leaving the hive, honey producers sometimes cut off her wings

* Often, queen bees are artificially inseminated.

*Large commercial operations sometimes take all the honey instead of leaving enough for the bees to get through the winter. The honey is than replaced with a cheap sugar substitute.

* Most beekeepers remove all the spring-season honey.

* In colder areas, some bee keepers will burn the beehives, killing all the bees inside, before the winter starts to reduce cost.

*Bees are often killed or harmed by haphazard handling.

Stewie, the information provided states that SOME bee keepers not all of them burn beehives; resulting in dead bees.

vegans do not eat honey or milk....they do not consume any meat, animal products, or byproducts. as far as vegans are concerned it is not any different than drinking milk....it is viewed as animal exploitation because it is a substance that is produced by an animal. EDIT: it's a common misconception that veg*ns care more about animals than humans.....i am a vegetarian and i am training to be a nurse for the sole purpose of reducing as much suffering as i can. for many, yes...their primary interest is animals. but there are also many veg*ns whose purpose is compassion and/or minimizing exploitation and excersize that in areas other than animal welfare/liberation as well. just like everyone else, veg*ns are individuals and will find interests in different areas and activities. Christopher K: I don't know a single vegetarian or vegan that would claim to be perfect and superior to everyone else. If those are the kind of veg*ns you have met, it's unfortunate that they have left such a bad impression on you. If it bothers you to hear about vegetarian and vegan diets I would suggest not contributing in the V & V forum, since that is obviously the topic at hand here. By the way, the only people in my life that know I'm a vegetarian are my immediate family, a few close coworkers, and closest friends....it's not something I tell people in the first 2 minutes, 2 hours, or 2 days of knowing them.....more like a year or two. Please try not to generalize vegetarians......you would not like to be generalized, and it's good practice to treat others as you prefer to be treated. Please keep in mind this is not meant in rudeness, just to draw awareness to the fact that not all vegetarians and vegans are as you have described...... Christopher K: again, not all vegetarians are like that. in fact, i have never encountered one who is. again, it's unfortunate that that is the impression you've been given. but it seems that you are just stereotyping....i am a vegetarian and do not do yoga and do not inquire with my hosts about whether their veggies are local and organic. unfortunately if you have this set so firmly in your mind i'm not sure you'll ever believe me, but maybe if you were slower to judge and stereotype you'd be pleasantly surprised at the nice people you would encounter.

Vegans do not eat honey. Also, check what you have now. Lots of fruit bars and such have honey in them. The hives of the bees are destroyed to collect the honey so they are there for forced to create a new one. They use smoke and put it into the hive to calm the bees down. I don't know about you, but I don't think that I would enjoy this and I doubt that you do. You can search the web and you should be able to find out more about this.

Although there is some cruelty involved in the honey industry, such as what others mentioned and smoking or destroying hives, whether you include honey in your diet is a personal decision. What you eat should be based on your own beliefs.

Personally, I don't eat honey because I don't like how they are treated, plus I just don't like to use anything from an animal. So because it's against my personal beliefs, I don't eat it.

The definition of vegan is someone who excludes all animal products, but it really should be your own decision. It's about being true to yourself and what you believe in, not conforming to an ideal. So just look inside yourself, and ask yourself if you think that mistreating an insect is wrong. If not, eat the honey. If so, don't eat it.

Vegans don't eat honey. Honey is food that bees work very hard to make so they will have proper nutrition. Bees are often injured or killed when we take their food from them.

Most vegans will say that you shouldn't eat honey, but I'd say that one is up to you. Some fantastic information regarding honey has already been posted here, so just do your research and make your decision based on that. :)

My Grandfather was a bee keeper. Bee keepers don't burn the hives and kill the bees. Without the bees there would be no honey. Honey is their income. Why would anybody spread false claims like that, Ufo Alie? That would be like a produce farmer destroying perfectly good fresh produce for no reason. Doesn't make sense does it?

well the bees make it for their kids to eat. they give birth to the bees in a honey house so the kids grow up and eat their home

vegans dont eat honey, it destroys the bees hive. because the bees take sugar and nectar and use basically their spit to build their hive for their little baby bees and its supposed to be the food for the bee larve but yeah, that doesn't work out so well.

why would u ask if they eat honey? it seems like you know the answer already or did u just randomly wonder one day?

are you REALLY a vegan that dosnt know if honey is vegan? thats odd. im skeptical. i think you just want attention.