quill-of-thoth:

vertiga:

vampiregirl2345:

Vegans of tumblr, listen up. Harvesting agave in the quantities required so you dont have to eat honey is killing mexican long-nosed bats. They feed off the nectar and pollinate the plants. They need the agave. You want to help the environment? Go back to honey. Your liver and thyroid will thank you, as well. Agave is 90% fructose, which can cause a host of issues. Bye.

Beekeeper here! Just wanted to say that the fact that vegans won’t eat honey is very silly. Harvesting honey does not hurt bees. The invention of modern moveable-frame hives means we can remove a selected frame, extract the honey and return it without killing a single bee.

If we destroyed the colony to harvest honey there would be no bees for next year, and beekeepers are incredibly careful to keep their bees healthy and thriving. We take *excess* honey that they don’t need, and it stops the hive from becoming honey-bound, meaning that there’s so much honey the Queen has nowhere to lay eggs. And if the winter is harsher than expected and the remaining honey store runs low, we feed the bees plenty to make sure they survive. We also make sure that pests are controlled, bees are treated for disease, and the hive is weatherproof and in good repair, all things that wild bees struggle with.

Keeping bees in properly managed hives where they don’t starve or die from preventable disease is much better for them than being left to fend for themselves, and they’re far too important to be left alone.

All the fruits and vegetables that vegans *do* eat couldn’t exist without bees, and the hives which pollinate those crops also produce excess honey which the beekeepers can sell to help keep themselves and their hives going.

TLDR: BUY THE HONEY, HELP THE BEES.

Additionally – local beekeepers care a LOT about reducing pesticide use and maintaining native plants, because that’s literally how they keep their bees alive. Support them and you don’t have to know jack about your local environment to help it out – they already know.

A lot of them will remove swarms from your property for you for cheap or free, because they get bees out of it. Obviously this is better for animal welfare than paying someone to poison your bug problem.

You’re often supporting local small businesses, especially run by retired folks (anecdotally there might be more non-retirees these days but when my grandpa was keeping bees most of the state fair competitors were old folks.)

Unlike pretty much every other “natural” remedy involving herbs and essential oils, honey won’t interact with your meds, so you can take it for sore throats or to try and stave off pollen allergies, and worst case scenario is it doesn’t work but is delicious.

Wax can also be harvested without harming the hive.

The hive lives longer in captivity than in the wild, due to clean housing, supplemental feeding, and disease control.