The Buzz About Honey

Honey can be a sticky subject because, while the production of honey and products with honey doesn’t involve killing bees, the exploitation of bees to create so much honey in the world is cause for concern. Some people avoid honey altogether; others use only honey that comes from local beekeepers. I watched a documentary called The Silence of the Bees a couple of months ago that I highly recommend everyone adds to the Netflix queue. Once you watch the film, you can decide for yourself about your personal honey habits.

When I watched the documentary, what really hit home for me was the use of bees in the context of agribusiness, particularly the transportation of bees over great distances from farm to farm: huge colonies of bees are transported by trucks from one place to the next to do their pollination work. Bees are born immediately ready to go to work, and they will work and work and work until they fly off from the hive to die. With the practice of migrating bees to all these farms so that they can pollinate fast enough and on a scale large enough to keep up with our consumption needs, are our demands on them too much?  Does it amount to cruelty to the bees? And this over-exhaustion of bees also potentially has a negative impact on the planet: the disappearance of millions of bees in just the last few years is bound to have catastrophic effects on our entire ecosystem.  What will we do when we simply don’t have enough bees around to keep the life cycles of all the plants and flowers going as Mother Nature intended?

I have one jar of local honey in my pantry, on the shelf dedicated to all my teas. The same jar has been sitting there for about two years — and it’s still three-quarters full. I won’t have to make a decision whether “to buy or not to buy” another jar for a long time, but the fact that this jar is lasting for such a long time indicates I can do just as well without.

Other than that single jar, my home is honey-free and bee-friendly. With just a few simple substitutions, it’s been easy enough to do our part to lessen the burden on our bumble friends. First, we avoid buying cookies and bars that are sweetened with honey. For home cooking, we use agave nectar, brown rice syrup, or maple syrup as a sweetener. Stevia tastes just as good in my tea. Instead of beeswax candles, we use soy candles —  just as pretty. Need a good lip balm? My fave is the vegan lip balm by Merry Hempsters.

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