To Bee, Or Not To Bee?

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Is eating honey wrong? Some people think so, although I personally don't, and fail to see the justification(s) for that view. The human race has been harvesting this magical sweetener for at least 8,000 years, it's health benefits are well-known as are its sundry other medicinal uses. And it tastes amazing. Honey and live yoghurt (damn, another no-no in certain circles) are a staple in some of the most healthy diets on the planet, and coincidentally, are my usual breakfast fare.

The argument goes that harvesting honey is bad for the bees that produce it, that it exploits those species and is leading to their decline through depriving them of their winter stores of food. But anyone who keeps bees to produce honey and who then seeks to jeopardise their hives through such over-exploitation would not have honey to harvest past a single season. Fact.

We as a species have managed our relationship with animals generally for thousands of years, but the one creature we have to respect and nurture above all others, is the bee: we know not how to make honey ourselves. What we do need to do, however is to manage our cultivation of crops far, far better than we do, as it is in the production of vegetables and fruits that we cause most harm to the bee population, through our indiscriminate use of pesticides. A vegan conundrum if ever there was one.

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