few questions

[euphoric1dr]

hi guys, thanks for your encouraging words on my last post =) you're right - we can't beat ourselves up for mistakes; the most important thing is the intention to do good and live a vegan lifestyle, because we truly want to and believe i in these values. thanks again

Comments

[bitspike]

". . . things bear more fruit when you keep bees on your property. That doesn't mean you need to take the excess honey, but it does mean they can't just be left alone to "live in peace". Unless you just mean left alone at their constructed hive."

I do admit that I don't know a lot about the lives of bees, and that my position may be viewed as a little idealistic, but the way I understand it is this: bees are necessary for much food and other plantlife production and therefore it is important for farms etc. to have bees around. However, just because they are in close proximity to farms does not mean we should 'take advantage of the opportunity to steal some of their honey'. As bees are so important, their presence should be justification enough for their existence without having to resort to direct exploitation of the hive.

As I mentioned, I don't know much about the lives of bees, but is there a reason they can't live happily if we just leave them alone? (I wasn't sure what you meant in the last few sentences. Perhaps you just meant that we first must provide them with housing. If so, is that always necessary?)

Perhaps you meant that we must interfere on some level to introduce bees onto our 'property' and this goes against 'leaving them alone' as a whole. If so, I agree. But, we've already had a major effect on their global placement and helping reintroduce them to their natural environment (regions of origin) would be the only major interfering we would need to do. Then they could live comfortably, we would benefit from bee pollination of plants, and everything would be happy and sustainable.

(As I said, I might be a little bit too idealist in my views.)

I just feel that bees are important intrinsically. Even if we do see them as a resource for us, we don't have to take anything from them in order to reap the benefits of their existence.

Side note: I live in suburbs very close to the smog-filled city in Sydney. Every now and then I find a tree which bees have decided to make their home. It's such a beautiful sight watching them buzz around. It's amazing how resourceful they can be, despite heavy suburbanisation and pollution - not to mention angry residents with kids who feel the bees are a threat which must be fatally dealt with =(

[kcanadensis]

I come from more of a biology background than many here, I suspect (and my girlfriend who has been attacked in these threads is the daughter of an ENTOMOLOGIST) and I've also had the pleasure of seeing bees being kept by people who love them and take good care of them. I have also kept up with beekeeping practices via a blog by someone who does it more as a hobby. This happened rather by accident as I watch the persons blog for news about birding :)

But at any rate, from what I have learned/read, honeybees in the US are introduced, and we could not grow the amount of crops we need to grow without them. They can't survive on their own without husbandry, therefore if we stopped keeping them in hives, they wouldn't exist, and our food wouldn't either.

But, as I mentioned several times when responding to others, I do NOT think this justifies stealing honey from them, and I have concluded today that I can't justify it really. Even if the person I know locally is only taking the excess, an animal is still working to provide them food. But technically, they're also providing us with our fruits and vegetables. Again, not trying to justify it anymore at this point, but I think all of these things need to be taken into consideration, especially for the people I see posting crying "human dominion over bees!" because whether you eat honey or not, human dominion over bees is what puts the food on our tables. :/