Fuck the honey industry; wish it were the owners who got stung instead of the driver.
Edit: You know what makes me laugh sometimes? That much of society is give-or-take 200 years divorced from the widespread acceptance of human chattel slavery – an era where a vast swathe of the population were perfectly content in the idea that other actual human beings existed to serve their needs under often lifelong abuse. An era where “they’re safer this way; it’s (conveniently) better for them if I take the products of their labor” as alluded to below applied to living, breathing, sapient human beings with hopes, dreams, feelings, and relationships – little if no different from themselves.
That everyone here today totally understands that this happened.
And that then those people who today benefit directly from and perpetuate the brutal, wholly unnecessary exploitation of billions upon trillions of animals may be forced to confront: “Could I be in the wrong? Is the fact that humans justified chattel slavery for countless generations indicative of a profound willingness in our species to justify unfathomable atrocity for their own convenience? Could I be justifying something because it’s convenient to me personally?” To which the answer is: “No, it’s those annoying people who insist upon rights for animals who are wrong.”
I used to do this, which somehow makes it funnier and more depressing.
Most apiaries are just people, not corporations that bottle honey. The very very vast majority of bee keepers have zero to do with the poor practices of honey bottling businesses that adulterate honey and ruin the industry. Most commercial honey comes from private beekeepers who rent their bees to pollinate crops so Americans can actually have affordable food. Those beekeepers are not out there adulterating honey or acting irresponsibly with their bees. Most adulterated honey comes from out of the nation and is imported by a select few shit corporations. Fuck the corporations, not the people working hard to get your quality honey and pollinate your food so you don’t have to rely on poorly functioning vitamin substitutes to avoid diseases humans get when they eat limited selections of produce and hyper processed “food”.
I’m a bee keeper and it’s clear you know nothing about bees and how they work. They don’t use all their honey, and you leave them enough plus some extra to use and survive on all year and through the winter. If you leave unused honey it attracts mice and other pests that destroy the hives, eat the honey, the larva, and cause much stress and eventually encourage disease in the bees. A well managed hive is actually better, safer for the bees than just leaving them to their own devices, which runs on reproducing in such high numbers that their species survives and replicates based on swarming, dividing the hive so often that they can continue on as a species despite disease, some colony collapse, some suffering.
A good bee keeper is safer and healthier than a natural selection process because nature can be a bitch, especially if your species isn’t about the individual but is instead a numbers game.
Having said that, my heart sinks when I read about these crashes, and the bees are described as “loose” or “escaped”. Very few of those colonies would survive. They’ve lost their home and their queen.
I have never ever known another bee keeper to clip wings of queens, especially because they only live a few years, swarming is healthy, and clipping is pointless when you manage the hives properly. A seasoned bee keeper will just manage the hives to do artificial splits and the queens will just stay in the new split because it mimics a swarmed hive in a new home. This complaint is like saying i don’t trust doctors because some use motor oil to perform ass and bicep and breast augmentations. Yeah, a few shady assholes do, but not the majority, so why are you judging and condemning an entire group based on a limited few who perform a very rare practice? Because you don’t know what you’re talking about and want to be angry about something on the internet, because it’s easier to do that than actually get out there and talk to people in the industry first hand. Stop getting your news and information from anger engagement sources.
Stop getting your news and information from anger engagement sources.
I literally got it from a blog called “The Apiarist”. It’s a common practice. From the University of Florida: “Queen management practices include monitoring the queen, queen replacement, marking a queen, and clipping the queen’s wings.”
Queen clipping isn’t nearly the only thing wrong with the honey industry, but quit pretending it doesn’t exist just because you don’t personally practice it.
Edit: And to clarify, this is from what amounts to a propaganda piece for the bee industry written by apiculturists, declaring that beekeeping of an invasive species is actually (so conveniently) a necessary practice. They still own up to queen clipping, because why wouldn’t they? It’s commonplace.
This is a common misconception. Technically, yes, the bees can physically leave, but because of that, it’s common practice for beekeepers to clip the queen’s wings – thereby the queen can’t leave and a hive’s chance of success in swarming decreases drastically. By the nature of how bees work, it is an artificial ball and chain.
They can finally doo-doo.
Fuck the honey industry; wish it were the owners who got stung instead of the driver.
Edit: You know what makes me laugh sometimes? That much of society is give-or-take 200 years divorced from the widespread acceptance of human chattel slavery – an era where a vast swathe of the population were perfectly content in the idea that other actual human beings existed to serve their needs under often lifelong abuse. An era where “they’re safer this way; it’s (conveniently) better for them if I take the products of their labor” as alluded to below applied to living, breathing, sapient human beings with hopes, dreams, feelings, and relationships – little if no different from themselves.
That everyone here today totally understands that this happened.
And that then those people who today benefit directly from and perpetuate the brutal, wholly unnecessary exploitation of billions upon trillions of animals may be forced to confront: “Could I be in the wrong? Is the fact that humans justified chattel slavery for countless generations indicative of a profound willingness in our species to justify unfathomable atrocity for their own convenience? Could I be justifying something because it’s convenient to me personally?” To which the answer is: “No, it’s those annoying people who insist upon rights for animals who are wrong.”
I used to do this, which somehow makes it funnier and more depressing.
Most apiaries are just people, not corporations that bottle honey. The very very vast majority of bee keepers have zero to do with the poor practices of honey bottling businesses that adulterate honey and ruin the industry. Most commercial honey comes from private beekeepers who rent their bees to pollinate crops so Americans can actually have affordable food. Those beekeepers are not out there adulterating honey or acting irresponsibly with their bees. Most adulterated honey comes from out of the nation and is imported by a select few shit corporations. Fuck the corporations, not the people working hard to get your quality honey and pollinate your food so you don’t have to rely on poorly functioning vitamin substitutes to avoid diseases humans get when they eat limited selections of produce and hyper processed “food”.
I care about bees, not how pure the product of their systematic exploitation is. It’s not “my” honey or yours; it’s theirs.
I’m a bee keeper and it’s clear you know nothing about bees and how they work. They don’t use all their honey, and you leave them enough plus some extra to use and survive on all year and through the winter. If you leave unused honey it attracts mice and other pests that destroy the hives, eat the honey, the larva, and cause much stress and eventually encourage disease in the bees. A well managed hive is actually better, safer for the bees than just leaving them to their own devices, which runs on reproducing in such high numbers that their species survives and replicates based on swarming, dividing the hive so often that they can continue on as a species despite disease, some colony collapse, some suffering.
A good bee keeper is safer and healthier than a natural selection process because nature can be a bitch, especially if your species isn’t about the individual but is instead a numbers game.
Fellow beekeeper here and I concur.
Having said that, my heart sinks when I read about these crashes, and the bees are described as “loose” or “escaped”. Very few of those colonies would survive. They’ve lost their home and their queen.
Hey, you forgot to mention the part where beekeepers clip queen bees’ wings so the hive physiologically has essentially no choice but to stay.
I have never ever known another bee keeper to clip wings of queens, especially because they only live a few years, swarming is healthy, and clipping is pointless when you manage the hives properly. A seasoned bee keeper will just manage the hives to do artificial splits and the queens will just stay in the new split because it mimics a swarmed hive in a new home. This complaint is like saying i don’t trust doctors because some use motor oil to perform ass and bicep and breast augmentations. Yeah, a few shady assholes do, but not the majority, so why are you judging and condemning an entire group based on a limited few who perform a very rare practice? Because you don’t know what you’re talking about and want to be angry about something on the internet, because it’s easier to do that than actually get out there and talk to people in the industry first hand. Stop getting your news and information from anger engagement sources.
I made it this far down and appreciate your patience with the other poster and I learned about bees!
Except you didn’t, because they’re lying. Queen clipping is a common practice.
I literally got it from a blog called “The Apiarist”. It’s a common practice. From the University of Florida: “Queen management practices include monitoring the queen, queen replacement, marking a queen, and clipping the queen’s wings.”
Queen clipping isn’t nearly the only thing wrong with the honey industry, but quit pretending it doesn’t exist just because you don’t personally practice it.
Edit: And to clarify, this is from what amounts to a propaganda piece for the bee industry written by apiculturists, declaring that beekeeping of an invasive species is actually (so conveniently) a necessary practice. They still own up to queen clipping, because why wouldn’t they? It’s commonplace.
Do you get this worked up about other topics?
Actually, yeah, I do, usually ones involving widespread abuse and exploitation. Glad you asked.
Can a man not advocate the rights of bees while also hoping that two million of them descend upon Benjamin Netanyahu?
The bees are not enslaved. They can swarm and leave at any time.
This is a common misconception. Technically, yes, the bees can physically leave, but because of that, it’s common practice for beekeepers to clip the queen’s wings – thereby the queen can’t leave and a hive’s chance of success in swarming decreases drastically. By the nature of how bees work, it is an artificial ball and chain.