Soybean Farmers and Honeybees Exploitation - The Vegan View

"If beeswax is not vegan due to the exploitation of the honeybees , then is soywax [and possibly other soy products in general] vegan since soybean farmers use honeybees to pollinate their crops?"

VegFamily readers reply:

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Jay:
By using the bees to pollinate does not harm any bees it is what bees do.

Lynn:
If farmers didn't use bees to pollinate their crops, we would be without many of our foods. Beans, nuts, vegetables, fruits--mostly bee pollinated. I don't use honey because I don't want to kill bees (which happens during honey harvesting); I support bee-keepers because we don't have anywhere near enough wild bees to do the job of pollinating our crops.

Carol:
Since Nature has evolved creatures such as bees to help cross-polinate by instinct how can that be construed as manipulation? Without polination, there'd be no new plants. And since ecologically speaking it's sound, I'd say Soy products are vegan friendly.

Adey:
Pollination of any crop is not exploitation of animals. The animals are free and you do not harvest their hives.

A number of insects and small animals will die during harvesting of crops with combine harvesters - so ideally you should buy local, buy non-intensive and try to grow your own.

Veganism is about doing the minimum you can you exploit and kill animals of any form - and never do it willingly or knowingly. I personally think there is a big difference between insect naturally pollinating plants or accidentally getting caught in a harvesting machine to purposely using animals for food or apparel.

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