we jest, but there are actually ecological concerns with industrialized honey production but as usual the real problem is capitalism and we could absolutely do beekeeping in a harmonious way that some vegans would probably still be mad about but reasonable ones would be fine with.

can’t believe bees complain about the free housing, healthcare, being moved from food source to food source, the dang ol bees get better treatment than we do

I used to volunteer at an apiary and go to industry conferences.

Bees are exploited because they are chattel. Their health is actually put in jeopardy because we breed them with low genetic diversity (certain traits make them easier to manage, like low aggression) and so they are more susceptible to colony collapse and varroa mites and such because of our interference.

Bees make their own housing, but we often deconstruct it for our own material benefit, like stealing their wax. They gather their own food, honey and pollen, which we steal for ourselves and replace with much less nutritious sugar water, which also leaves them weaker. Stealing their stores makes it harder for them to survive the winter as well.

Being moved is incredibly traumatic for bees. Many of them die in transportation. They get stressed about being in a strange places they don’t recognize. Places they are shipped to pollinate very often have pesticides. Huge numbers of bees do not survive these chemicals. It changes depending on the year, but some beekeepers lose over half their hives, thousands to millions of bees.

Bees are sentient creatures. They do not deserve to be exploited by us.