Honey Is Not Vegan: Why Honey Isn't Vegan/Honey Substitutes

Honey substitutes:
Bee Free Honee

Molasses
Apple Cider Syrup

Respect Bees, don't use their products, such as...
Honey
Mead
Bee's Wax/Cera Alba
Royal Jelly
Bee Pollen
Propolis
Bee Bread
Bee Venom/Apotoxin
Slumgum
Queen Bee Acid/10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid/10-HDA
Myrmicacin/3-hydroxydecanoic acid
10-Hydroxydecanic acid
3,10-Dihydroxydecanoic acid

To understand why honey isn't vegan, we have to look at what makes some people think that it is in the first place.

*Some don't know that bees (or insects or bugs as a whole) are animals. Of course they are. You can look this up anywhere. In fact you really should have learned this in school. Their kingdom is Animalia just like us and every other animal, so honey and beeswax and all other bee products are just as much of animal products as every other animal product. This is the most simple reason as to why honey isn't vegan...because it's an animal product and veganism is based around cutting out all animal products.

*Some don't think that there is animal cruelty in the bee industry. There are various cruel practices when it comes to bee farming which my references below will talk about.
*Some discriminate on them based on size or lack of cuddliness. Just because dogs and cats are bigger and don't have stingers does not mean bees are any less valuable or worthy of the same rights.
*Some don't think that bees are intelligent/complex/can feel pain etc. Not true. In fact bees are so intelligent and complex that they use vector calculus to do a dance that tells the other bees the exact direction and distance etc. that they can get pollen. They have complex hive systems. My resources can tell you more about these things as well. With these last two points though come the point that one should never discriminate on someone else based on things like size or intelligence etc. We don't do that to humans, instead helping the ones who are seen as less intelligent and more weak and so on and so forth even MORE than the rest of us. Even if they WEREN'T smart or complicated or so on, or even if you find a beekeeper that treats their bees well, that leaves the final point, the basis of veganism itself, that it's not just about that...
*Some don't understand that veganism is not just about direct pain and suffering, but rather how we view and treat other animals as a whole, such as if we consider ourselves above them or treat them as "workers" for us to "provide" us things, even as if they have a "job" to do for us. Bees make honey and other products for themselves. They are not for us. We know that stealing is wrong when we do it to humans, and thus it's wrong when we do it to bees. If anyone were to take the food I worked so hard to create, even if it were leftovers that I was saving up (and especially if they were to gas me to sedate me in order to get it, or sell it afterward), everyone would consider that wrong. We know that taking milk would always be non-vegan regardless of whether or not the cows are treated nicely. Taking their products such as honey and wax treats them like they are here in part to provide for us, like they are our property, exploits them, treats them as commodities, and is completely objectifying. It treats them as machines that provide goods for us. It's enslaving because we take what they work hard to make without their consent. Bees make honey as food for themselves, not us. You can treat them nicely but it would be like saying slavery is ok as long as you treat slaves well enough. It is still stealing from, exploiting, objectifying, and treating as property to provide goods and services for us, despite the fact that they can't consent. Not to mention selling and making a profit off of them.
*I also should point out that some think that we need bee farming to keep their numbers up as they are dying off, but you do NOT need to steal their products in order to help them out. That's still like saying it's ok to have slaves if you treat them nicely so that you can be sure they won't die if they aren't owned by you. There is NEVER a reason to steal their products, and you do NOT need to steal them in order to plant the plants they need to pollinate, cut back on using harsh chemicals on plants that hurt them, put out bee fountains (bowls with rocks and water) for them to drink out of, or otherwise help their numbers grow. There are actual vegans who just plant those plants in their backyard and then leave them alone. That's a MUCH better idea than exploiting them along the way. Here are a few comments I've found that really drive this point home, "There are LOADS of ways to help wild bees without going near an apiculturist.: - Building wild bee houses - Guerilla Gardening - Seed bombs - Protesting/petitioning against the use of neo-nicotinoid pesticides (they're mostly all bad, but this is one of the worst) - Buy organic - Become a locavore (eater of locally grown produce)...Supporting beekeepers only really helps beekeepers."

"For around 20 million years, bees have been getting on fine without any form of symbiotic relationship with humans. Only when humans decided that they had the right to interfere with bees (about 15,000 years ago) did they start having problems. To put that in perspective, if the honey bee had only been around for a day, we've put them in danger of extinction within the last minute. Just leave them alone. Create bee habitats in woodland and plant a variety of wild, bee friendly, flowers on unused land or use seed bombs. Petition against the use of neo-nicotinoid pesticides (one of the most damaging to bees). All these things will help the bee population enormously.

Bees already do an awful lot for us by pollinating roughly a third of our edible crop species, along with plenty of other plants that are important for the food web if not us directly. Are we really so damned entitled that we'll demand their honey as well? For no other reason than "it tastes good". Seriously, we've been in a symbiotic relationship with bees for millenia. Just recently we decided we weren't happy with that though and decided to take more and more from that relationship. We need to leave them be (no pun intended) and get over the idea that we in anyway deserve compensation for setting right a mess we created in the first place!
https://www.growwilduk.com/.../make-your-own-solitary-bee...
http://guerrillagardening.org"Now I want to make it clear that I am not saying anyone who uses things like honey is a bad person. I know that in a world where it is so normalized, (and even fetishized with people acting like bee vomit with bee stomach acids and the common allergy that is pollen in it is somehow healthy) people can do it without thinking twice about it or even be pressured into it, I am just providing info as to why it's not acceptable to vegans. I have a video on this too, and then I will get to the other resources I have saved up.