According to The Vegan Society “Honey is probably the product most frequently mistaken as vegan-friendly.” Vegans avoid any animal products or by-products, and honey is produced by bees, which are animals. However, we increasingly get enquiries about our honey from vegans and without exception they don’t leave without tasting and buying some of our honey!

According to BBC Good Food, “honey is a product made by bees, which are living creatures. Harvesting honey is seen as detrimental to the bees, who have worked hard to manufacture it in order to support their own survival through the colder months. Green Matters also confirms that “vegans do not eat honey, even in small, local, family-run beehives, beekeepers must still keep bees in captivity and take their honey — which is their food — from them.”

So why do vegans keep on buying our honey? Well, let’s dispel some myths and common misconceptions perpetuated by vegan authorities:-

1.     “Harvesting honey exploits the bees and deprives them of their food source. When beekeepers remove honey from a hive, they replace it with a sugar substitute which is significantly worse for the bees’ health since it lacks the essential micro-nutrients of honey."

In reality, honey provides bees with no more than sugar, which they use as a source of energy. During the spring and summer months, when there is a plentiful supply of nectar, bees will collect a surplus if we provide them with extra space to store it in the hive. They do not have an “off switch” when they have collected enough for their needs. We leave sufficient honey for the bees needs when we harvest it. It’s not in our interest to let them starve to death during the winter! To safeguard against this, we monitor the level of stored food during the winter and top it up with sugar when it gets low. Bees derive essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals , amino acids and proteins from the pollen they collect and not the honey. They store  the pollen separately from the honey, close to their brood nest. This is unaffected by harvesting honey and topping up their winter stores with sugar. Bee colonies that swarm and live in the wild have a shockingly low survival rate. According to some estimates, the survival rate in the wild is as low as 25% and many don’t make it through the winter and die from starvation.

2.     Commercial honey production involves unethical practices such as clipping the queen’s wings  to prevent their colonies from swarming and leaving the hive and culling hives post-harvest to keep costs down.

We regard such practices as completely unnecessary. Wing clipping is a short cut and a lazy way of attempting to preventing swarming and is often unsuccessful. When a clipped queen leaves the hive, she drops to the ground unable to fly. Without the queen, the flying bees, unable to swarm, return to the hive. In the meantime the queen may or may not crawl back into the hive. If unable to find her way back to the hive, the clipped queen is abandoned and perishes outside the hive. The colony, now without a queen starts raising a replacement queen and if successful there will be a delay of several weeks before there is a new resident egg-laying queen and this may impact on the size of the colony, amount of honey collected and winter survival.

We, on the other hand inspect our hives on a regular basis, observe the early tell-tale signs of swarm preparation and manipulate the hive to ensure that the bees have ample room inside (as congestion in the hive is one of the main triggers of swarming). We are proud of the fact that we succeed in maintain our hives without them swarming. We ensure that this skill is acquired by our students on our beginner and improver courses as we regard allowing bees to swarm as unsociable behaviour. During May and June I routinely receive 4-5 phone calls daily from distressed members of the public requesting the removal of swarms from their premises! With old hollow tree trunks being removed for safety reasons, swarms of bees seek our alternative cavities including chimneys, cavity walls, roof voids, soffits and post boxes. Not only does this cause unnecessary distress to the property owner, there is substantial disruption, structural work and cost to remove them.

3.     Beekeepers keep honeybees in captivity.

Bees are not routinely shut in the hive at night! They have an incredible ability to fly up to 3 miles from their hive and accurately navigate their way back and cease flying before dusk. As explained earlier, bees may choose to make preparations to swarm from the hive and young colonies may abscond and set up home elsewhere if conditions in the hive are not to their liking.

4.     In conventional beekeeping, honey bees are specifically bred to increase productivity. This selective breeding narrows the population gene pool and increases susceptibility to disease and large-scale die-offs. Diseases are also caused by importing different species of bees for use in hives.

Apis mellifera is the only honey-producing species of bee in European countries. Other more exotic species would not survive here and by definition would not breed with our species of bees as they belong to a different species so importing “different species of bee” is pointless and is an inaccurate representation of the facts. Furthermore there is a ban on importing  colonies of honey bees into the UK.

There are no such things as pure British bees for historical reasons. Locally occurring bees are often kept by beekeepers without intentionally selecting for desirable characteristics. Sadly, they are often aggressive and swarmy. Coupled with poor management they can cause a nuisance to the public.

We have carefully improved and broadened the gene pool of our bees by working diligently with other British bee breeders. As a consequence, our bees have an enhanced level of disease resistance and exhibit calm and non-aggressive behaviour as experienced by  the hundreds of individuals attending our educational events.

5.     The honey industry, like many other commercial industries, is profit-driven where the welfare of the bees is often secondary to commercial gain.

Let’s be realistic, all commercial industries and businesses (including vegan approved ones) are profit driven. Selling honey and delivering beekeeping training and experiences is how we make a livelihood. However, at Anglesey Bees, the drive for animal welfare, sustainability and environmental custodianship comes foremost. In common with other caring livestock farmers, we love our bees and have a special relationship with them! This is hard to understand without spending some time with us and our bees. Vegans inevitably leave us with a jar or two of honey in their hands and satisfied about our high welfare standards.

6.     Mass breeding of honeybees affects the populations of other competing nectar-foraging insects, including other bees. Overwhelmed by the ever-inflating quantities of farmed bees, the numbers of native bumblebees have declined.

There is a huge generalisation here. Although generally  European pollinator  populations have declined, this is largely due to habitat destruction, use of insecticides and climate change. However, in contrast, on  Anglesey the situation is very different due to the far less intensive land management and absence of arable crops here.  Furthermore, at Anglesey Bees we manage our land sympathetically to encourage the development of wildlife habitats specifically for all pollinators including our bees.  It is also a haven for red squirrels, hedgehogs, weasels, frogs, newts and adders. In addition we have transformed an acre of grassland into a bee-friendly woodland by planting 1000 broad-leaved trees with support from the Woodland Trust. Tree species have been specifically chosen for nectar and pollen production. We have already noticed a significant increase in biodiversity there, particularly amongst invertebrates. I will discuss further how we develop and manage wildlife habitats in a future blog.

7.     The importing of honey into the UK also increases our carbon footprint through the emissions associated with transport. Of the honey consumed in the UK, 95% of it is imported, mostly from China.

This is something that we can agree on! The solution is simple, buy local premium honey instead of cheap inferior stuff labelled as non-EU honey. I shall discuss the issue of honey quality, fake and adulterated honey in a future blog.