Recently my friend's commercial property had a beehive and the neighbors were going to kill the bees. We offered to house the bees in our garden. A beekeeper rescuer brought the bees over and they have thrived.

As a vegan, I always thought that humans didn't need to harvest any honey and that whatever honey bees make, that is what they will eat. This was the first time I ever cared for bees. One day the beekeeper came over and brought to me a lot of honey comb. He said the bees needed space. I have no experience in this field and I couldn't argue with him. Suddenly I have pounds and pounds of honey comb. Almost everyday, I put out a plate of honey water for the bees. I noticed that bees like to drink water, as I sometimes see them drinking water from a shallow crevice of our pond. The bees love the honey water. I learned never to put out straight honey, because they can get stuck in the honey.

I have only experimented with one tray. I let the honey drip out of the comb through a sieve. Then when the honey comb wax was mostly empty, I put it outside for the bees. They loved it. THe parts of the wax that was not bent and was straight, the bees cleaned perfectly and the wax was almost a bright beige white. THe wax that was bent was cleaned to a degree by the bees but was too merged with the honey, so the wax is more of a brown color.

What do you guys think about all this? I truly have been a vegan for years and the only times I used honey was to make a special comfrey poultice for external use on people and I had one formula that called for honey as a preservative. But now I ended up consuming a tiny amount, because the honey has been rather messy.

My friend was called again and there is yet one more hive that needs rescuing or it will be killed.

I have held the opinion that animal foods are dirty, including honey. To avoid disease as much as possible, animal foods should be avoided. It all comes down to disease transmission from animals to humans. This has been my understanding. Do you generally agree? Ironically, I was at the Cancer Control Society convention this month and I bought a book on how people in South AMerica have cured cancer with a particular variety of aloe vera and honey. I want to look deeper into this, because it would be interesting to see if the same results could be had without the honey, such as with fruit.

I am reaching out to you because I want to know what vegans do with rescued bees, and what do they do when the box is crammed with honey and the beekeeper says they need more space and that some honey must be harvested.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2015 06:37AM by Tai.

mmmmm

mmmmmm

I don't know.

But I do know animal foods are dirty. I always tell people drinking it, that its from a hairy wet nipple of a cow...a hairy nipple... and I say that slow...

What would the bees want you to do? That is the question, not what humans want. If it's in the best interest of the bees, then you can always remove the honey / wax / honeycomb and give it away, or sell it and donate the $$$'s to charity.

Not everyone is at your level of dietary enlightenment, and for many people to have natural unprocessed honey would be serving them well.

AS Christ said, '' let he who is among you without sin cast the first stone ''. We all use electricity, buy things from overseas or with plastics. It's ok to be kind and conscientious, but sometimes a bit of commonsense prevails. No point in magnifying something simple into a major dilemma.

BJ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What would the bees want you to do? That is the
> question, not what humans want. If it's in the
> best interest of the bees, then you can always
> remove the honey / wax / honeycomb and give it
> away, or sell it and donate the $$$'s to charity.

^ This.

Ethics aside, I know people go on about the nutritional/medicinal value of honey but I've never been convinced IMO i.e. honey and OJ for flu- I always found any sugar syrup (agave, fruit syrup or maple) and OJ works perfect.

Tai, well done for looking after the bees They really need our help right now Would be cool to see pictures if you get a chance.

BJ wrote:
then you can always remove the honey / wax / honeycomb and give it away

Tai:
Duh, I just realized I can simply store it for the bees during winter. THey need space, so some has to be removed periodically and this honey can be their reserve. Beeswax can come in handy sometimes for ointments and covering things.

I was just really surprised because I always heard from vegans that bees need their honey. IT's true, but I realized that it can be more complicated than that, and bees sometimes need humans helping them. For example, the beekeeper once found a moth problem in their box and had to clean it out.

I think Luisa Goncalves might be able to advise you on this Tai (although it sounds like you've reached an ideal conclusion by storing their honey for the winter!)
Here is a link to her page if you'd like to contact her. She's a beeautiful soul
[www.planetary-healing.org]

And well done for doing such a great job helping the bees!



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