🐝 Why Honey Isn’t Vegan (And Why That Matters)

When most people think of honey, they picture golden sweetness in a jar — nature’s candy. It’s often marketed as a “natural” and even “ethical” alternative to sugar. But if you ask a vegan, honey is off the menu. Why? Let’s dig into the sticky truth.

🍯 The Basics: What Honey Really Is

Honey isn’t just a syrupy treat. It’s food bees make for themselves. Worker bees gather nectar from flowers, carry it back to the hive, and through a combination of enzymes and evaporation, create honey. For bees, honey isn’t a sweetener; it’s survival. It fuels the hive through the winter when flowers aren’t blooming. When humans take honey, we’re taking the bees’ food supply.

🐝 Why Vegans Say No

Veganism is about avoiding exploitation and harm to animals. That includes big, obvious things — meat, dairy, eggs — but also less obvious products like wool, silk, and honey.

Here’s why honey doesn’t make the vegan cut:

1. It’s made by animals. Honey isn’t a plant product. It’s the direct labor and output of bees.
2. It involves exploitation. Commercial beekeeping isn’t about helping bees; it’s about maximizing honey harvests. That often means manipulating hives, clipping queen bees’ wings, and replacing honey with sugar water (which lacks honey’s nutrients).
3. Bees can be harmed in the process. Collecting honey often results in injured or killed bees. Even small disruptions to a hive can stress the colony, making them more vulnerable to disease.

🌍 The Bigger Picture: Bees and the Environment

Some people argue, “But don’t we need beekeepers to save the bees?” It’s true that bees are essential pollinators. But here’s the catch: most commercial honey comes from domesticated European honeybees, not the thousands of wild bee species that are declining at alarming rates.

In fact, large-scale beekeeping can make the problem worse. Trucking hives across the country for pollination services spreads diseases to wild populations and disrupts local ecosystems. So buying honey doesn’t necessarily “help the bees.” It helps agribusiness.

🌱 Vegan Alternatives to Honey

If you love a drizzle of sweetness in your tea or over your oatmeal, there are plenty of vegan options:

• Maple syrup – rich, complex, and straight from the tree.
• Agave nectar – light, mild, and great for baking.
• Date syrup – caramel-like and nutrient-dense.
• Molasses – deep, earthy, and full of iron.

These plant-based syrups don’t come at the expense of an animal’s labor or food supply.

💡 The Takeaway

Honey might seem like a small detail in the bigger conversation about veganism, but small details add up. Choosing not to consume honey is one more way to align actions with values: avoiding animal exploitation and protecting fragile ecosystems.

The next time you reach for that jar, remember: what’s a sweetener for us is survival for them. And with so many plant-based alternatives available, bees don’t need to be part of the menu.

Julie Bolejack, MBA