Spoiler Alert: Reacting to Bee Movie - and weighing in on the big honey debate
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SPOILER ALERT. Please do not read past this point if you plan on watching Bee Movie and/or care about having the plot revealed to you.
Premise of this movie in a nutshell: a bee decides he is not happy with the status quo of bee-dom, working his whole life for honey production. He goes out into the real world, develops a relationship with a human woman, and discovers *gasp* that humans have been stealing the honey of bees in large quantities and jarring it to sell on grocery store shelves. He explains why this is wrong - bees work hard for their honey - it’s their whole life, their delicious food. He follows a honey production truck and sees how the bee-keepers cruelly drug the bees with smoke until they practically pass out and keep the bees in horrible perversions of homes where they unhappily produce honey which the bee keepers collect in vast quantities. So the bee decides he is going to sue the honey production companies in a large lawsuit - supported by the human he befriended, they manage to win the lawsuit!
They demand to have all of their honey back. Having a surplus of honey, the bees don’t need to produce any more and they fall into a sluggish lazy lifestyle. In the process of no flowers being pollinated, all of the flowers of the world die except for the last flowers at a special ‘rose tournament’ parade. Regretting his lawsuit and protest against the stealing of the bees’ honey, the lead bee goes on a quest to get the last flowers so that the bees can re-pollinate and bring back the flowers of the city.
The whole problem of cruelty in bee production is never resolved. The bee played by Jerry Seinfeld regrets all of the protesting he ever did, reiterating that it’s all his fault, and looking very downtrodden. But in the end, lo and behold! They can get the last flowers on earth and pollinate them to save all of the beautiful greenery and flowers of the city! Once the flowers are all saved, the bee takes on his job as a pollinator in the hive, and all is well. He regularly visits his human friend, and in the back of her flower shop he has an attorney’s office where at the end of the film he sits with a female cow. Here, I sat up a little straighter. She complains … something like, “sometimes they make me feel just like a piece of meat!” Ha ha, hee hee. Right, the cow is fighting for her rights. This was of course not funny to me - after dealing with the honey issue, the film makers decided to make light of the suffering of cows. That was going a little too far, especially when this is a movie directed towards children.
The basic premise of the movie was: well, we are taking their food - but if we gave it all back, then nature would die! The bees wouldn’t have to work to preserve the circle of life any longer! It’s all one big happy circle of life, folks! We need to eat some of their honey, they make too much of it anyway!
Right. Or, you could not take their honey and they would be able to eat their proper food through the winter. Well, as a somewhat new vegan I am still contemplating both sides of the honey issue.
The term ‘vegan’ was originally coined in 1944 by Donald Watson: (via Jo Stepaniak)
Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverence for life. It applies to the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives, and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or in part from animals.
In another legal document, it was defined:
Veganism denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude - as far as is possible and practical - all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals, and the environment.
So, there’s this big debate in the vegan movement over the use of honey. Many arguments have flew by on either side, arguing for and against eating honey.
For eating honey:
- Bees are insects just like roaches and mosquitos.
- Bees are free to roam and in fact leave the beekeeper’s hive anytime they would like.
- Some bees are indeed squished in getting the honey from the hive.
- You probably kill more insects driving around in the average day.
Michael Greger in Satya magazine argues that the refusal to eat honey is actually hurting the vegan movement:
I’m afraid that our public avoidance of honey is hurting us as a movement. A certain number of bees are undeniably killed by honey production, but far more insects are killed, for example, in sugar production. And if we really cared about bugs we would never again eat anything either at home or in a restaurant that wasn’t strictly organically grown—after all, killing bugs is what pesticides do best. And organic production uses pesticides too (albeit “natural”). Researchers measure up to approximately 10,000 bugs per square foot of soil—that’s over 400 million per acre, 250 trillion per square mile. Even “veganically” grown produce involves the deaths of countless bugs in lost habitat, tilling, harvesting and transportation. We probably kill more bugs driving to the grocery store to get some honey-sweetened product than are killed in the product’s production.
Our position on honey therefore just doesn’t make any sense, and I think the general population knows this on an intuitive level. Veganism for them, then, becomes more about some quasi-religious personal purity, rather than about stopping animal abuse. No wonder veganism can seem nonsensical to the average person. We have this kind of magical thinking; we feel good about ourselves as if we’re actually helping the animals obsessing about where some trace ingredient comes from, when in fact it may have the opposite effect. We may be hurting animals by making veganism seem more like petty dogmatic self-flagellation.
Jo Stepaniak presents both sides, but ultimately concludes that since eating honey is completely unnecessary, it is probably best to be avoided:
This mixture, which we call honey (which is essentially bee vomit), is then stored in the cells of the bees’ hive and used as their sole source of nutrition in cold weather and other times when alternative food sources are not available. During the collection of flower nectar, the bees also pollinate plants. This is part of the natural process of life and is necessary and unavoidable. Even though humans inadvertently benefit, the bees do not pollinate plants in order to serve human needs; it is simply a secondary aspect of their nectar collecting. The honey that bees produce is stored in their hives for their own purposes. When humans remove honey from the hive, they take something that is not rightfully theirs.
To collect honey, beekeepers must temporarily remove a number of the bees from their home. During the course of bee management and honey collection, even the most careful beekeeper cannot avoid inadvertently injuring, squashing, or otherwise killing some of the bees. Other commodities may be taken from the hive as well, including beeswax, honeycomb, pollen, propolis, and royal jelly.
Bees are not harmed by the process of pollination — it is something they would do whether or not humans were involved or reaped any profit. If one were to stretch the point, using honey could, in a broad sense, be considered analogous to dairying. Furthermore, there is no reason to take honey from bees other than to sell it. Utilizing bees to pollinate crops in no way necessitates ravaging their hive.
Although the issue of honey is not deemed the most pressing concern of many vegans, honey is nevertheless considered an animal product. Because there are numerous alternatives to honey, from a vegan perspective there is no justifiable rationale for using it. Furthermore, the vegan position on honey is definitive. Honey was prohibited for use by vegans according to the 1944 manifesto of the British Vegan Society (veganism’s founding organization), a position consistent with the requirement for full (vegan) membership in the American Vegan Society since its inception in 1960.
Sweeteners are not necessary for human health. There are virtually no essential nutrients (in fact, there are hardly any nutrients at all) in sweeteners, so our use of them is purely for personal pleasure. Although the labor force is typically exploited on sugar plantations, even humans with minimal choices have far more options than the honeybees. Humans can live quite well without sugar or honey. As a rule, extensive use of sweeteners is found only in affluent societies. If vegans want to indulge in sweets, there are many substitutes available: organic, unbleached cane sugar (somewhat kinder to the environment, but not necessarily better for the workers); beet sugar; maple sugar; maple syrup; agave syrup; concentrated fruit syrups; rice syrup; barley malt; and sorghum syrup, among others. We do not need to choose between exploiting humans or bees in order to satisfy our sweet tooth. Concerned vegans can avoid harming either by eliminating sweets from their diet or by choosing compassionate alternatives.
Responding to Michael Greger’s strongly worded Satya magazine article, Bob and Jenna from Vegan Freak Radio make some interesting points:
These are good points overall, but they miss one thing: honey is unnecessary cruelty. We may not be able to avoid killing insects when producing crops, driving to the store, or doing other daily activities. But it is really simple to avoid honey, and no one needs it to live. Why should we recklessly abandon our commitment to reducing cruelty in this area of our lives, particularly when it is so easy to avoid? As Dr. Greger points out, we can probably dissect our lives in a million ways to figure out all of the ways that we knowingly or unknowingly exploit animals, and this can lead to pointless navel-gazing. Nevertheless, this isn’t one of those marginal cases like animal products being in tires, or insects being killed to produce food. This is a clear-cut case. Honey kills bees. Honey is easy to avoid. Therefore, if reducing suffering matters to you, you should avoid honey.
Finally, to fend off a common critique:
Veganism isn’t about perfection, but it is about reducing cruelty to the greatest extent possible and respecting the life of other beings when we can. When possible, we should make choices that respect compassion and life. So why eat honey for the sake of expediency? Also, Dr. Greger makes it seem like this will help improve the public standing of vegans. I have my doubts. Most of the world sees us as so marginal to begin with that something like this isn’t likely to improve our standing much. With that being the case, why engage in what is an avoidable form of cruelty?
(p.s. should you doubt that bees deserve some consideration, I’d encourage you to read this article. )
So where do I stand? I can certainly see both sides, but ultimately I think that I agree with the idea that honey is on the not-vegan side of things. I agree that honey is totally unnecessary, and that we don’t need to eat it. Bees produce honey for themselves, and when we take that honey from them we replace it with some crappy sugar-water substitute. I find agave nectar very delicious and don’t really miss honey at all in my diet, so for me it’s somewhat of a non-issue. I don’t really know that much about bees, so I’d rather err on the side of caution, or non-violence as much as is possible. Yes, I’m sure countless insects meet their demise at my hand inadvertently, but that doesn’t mean that given the choice I would choose to harm those insects. Plus, bees aren’t really just your average insect. They play a hugely important role in keeping everything going out there in nature, and with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) a major issue right now, I concur with Bob and Jenna that I do my best to make choices that reflect compassion and respect for life.
So while Bee Movie was relatively entertaining, I found it interesting how they encouraged sympathy for the plight of bees and then found a way to justify human consumption of honey.
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