Four key facts why honey isn’t vegan

Oftentimes when we think about exploited animals, we consider the four main big species: cows, pigs, chicken, and fish. But the reality is that even our top pollinators, the bees, are industrialized to extract their golden food.

Bees are some of the species that help keep biodiversity alive—but for years now, they’ve been dying at an alarming rate due to climate change and pesticide use. Industrializing them for the purpose of extracting honey isn’t helping either. Here are a few reasons why we should avoid their nectar:

•It’s the food of bees; they spend a lot of energy producing it and need it to survive, while for us it’s not essential for our survival. In practical terms, removing their food from the hive is the equivalent of someone walking into our kitchen and emptying out our fridge, after we spent hours at the supermarket.

•To extract honey, we industrialize the insects, without worrying about their well-being. A concrete example is the queen bee, the most important member of a hive (she’s the only fertile female). Beekeepers often cut off their wings so they can't escape from the boxes they're in.

•Today bees are in danger of extinction due to changes in the environment and/or the excessive use of pesticides on the trees they visit (this is called Colony Collapse Disorder). We have to ensure their survival since they are responsible for pollinating 80% of the plants, fruits, vegetables, and trees in the world.

•If you are interested in protecting bees, be careful when buying products that contain propolis, royal jelly, manuka, or the most obvious, beeswax. Remember that there are substitutes for sweetening, including agave syrup, panela, maple syrup, and coconut nectar, among others.