Vegan Society's view on beekeepers

[BKF Admin]

I dont think honeybees can pollinate tomatoes. They use bumblebees instead cause their buzzing shakes the pollen off.

I did wonder why in the uk they import Dutch Bumble bees for greenhouse tomatoes rather than just use a couple of local beehives.

 

[Onge]

I think it is because bumblebees have a considerably longer tongue than a honey bee.

 

[BKF Admin]

I blame evolution.

 

[Onge]

yea its great isn't it. Stops everything getting boring.

 

[shonabee]

I blame evolution.

I no, that Darwin bloke was dead clever designing all them diff'rent aminals.

(joking! I'm joking, honest!)

 

[oliver90owner]

Geoff,

I entirely agree with your comments re vegan health,

If the whole world were vegan,there would be no need for livestock?

The global warming (or rather 'climate change') if it is occuring, may, or may not , be driven (or assisted) by human activities.

For a start there are too many of our species to be supported 'naturally' by Mother Earth (naturally meaning no fertilisers, pesticides, mechanical powered cultivations, drugs, etc,etc). Secondly, wealth in many societies is still based on the number of livestock (how many goats you have etc); western societies need the farmers to keep all those animals for food products. Thirdly.....there is a lot more, but not needed here.

Now, all those herbivores produce vast amounts of methane (digestive system at both ends) and methane is about 80 times more potent at global heat retention than carbon dioxide. All adds up and compounds our (the human race) effect on the planet environment. Not even taking into account many other factors (eg habitat removal).

I am not a vegan or even a 'veggie' and am not going to change the world. It needs a bit more organising than just a few poeple realising the direction in which life on this planet is moving. Ultimate unsustainability comes to mind.

This is a beekeeping forum, so perhaps I should shut up about the effects of human activity on the planet. Likewise, others should leave the vegans to get on with their way of life, or at least go and argue the case elsewher, with those that are such fanatics (they may have a good case debating for some of their ideas).

We only need to look at apiculture and the mistakes in our recent times - moving species around the globe (some still move queens long distances - importation) causing the spread of disease and parasites. For what? Profit.

Beekeepers and the general public at large are only just realising the potential effects of a continually declining bee population. Wake up, Planet.

Every beekeeper on this forum is straining to improve our bee population. Let's all pull in that direction. Symbiosis seems a good term rather than cooperation. Not quite the right word but it shows the intent.

Regards, RAB

 

[Brosville]

I think that unfortunately Geoff has been reading too much vegan propaganda - despite their claims to the contrary, it is NOT a complete or healthy diet. It is perfectly possible for an otherwise healthy adult who has been brought up on "proper" food to live a reasonably healthy life on a vegan diet for some time, BUT eventually the animal-derived essential nutrition reserves will "run out", and illness will result. In extreme cases you'll find women with a fine growth of hair all over them (the name of which escapes me for a moment), and there are many cases on record of infants breast-fed by vegans who've suffered incurable brain-damage through lack of essential nutrition. One other way that vegans stay moderately healthy is by use of synthetic supplements flown in from the US of A (which is hardly "natural")
I'll reiterate - a vegetarian diet containing very little animal-derived food IS a perfectly healthy diet (a few eggs suffice), but a vegan diet is unnatural, and often dangerous, particularly to children (which rather sums up why it is an incomplete and unhealthy diet)
Being at the "natural" end of beekeeping, like all animals used I think we should respect them and treat them well, but the idea of a countryside totally devoid of animals is a petrifying and sad one - I think veganism has more to do with an innate inability to come to terms with what being human is all about than anything else - it's about as natural as people who "don't like" sex, who'd elect to have children grown in test tubes...........

 

[BKF Admin]

My daughter is a veggie and has been for 20 years.
She will eat meat 2 maybe 3 times a year as she cant be bothered to get food suppliments and says that she know's when she is deficiant and eats a meat meal and feels 10 times better.

 

[Brosville]

I think you've hit the nail on the head there - we CAN live very well on a vegetarian diet, as long as there is a modicum of "animal" food too - to exclude it completely is where the dangers lie.
I'd agree with the fact that as a whole, western society eats too much meat and saturated fat, much of the blame for the "bad" fats can be laid at the door of factory farming.... (in the 60's chicken was a lean, healthy meat, nowadays broiler birds are saturated fat balls)

 

[Finman]

Geoff,


If the whole world were vegan,there would be no need for livestock?

Lets look how vegan can live in these hemispheres. The human is not a herbivore.

Vegans get aminoacids from soya. Do you raise soya in Britain?

Airplanes and cold container ships and trucks carry fresh vegetables from outboards and we wonder why we worry about food?

20 years ago we had not airplane tomatoes from Spain or mangos from Uruquay.

The cow is the most important animal to human. It turns unvaluable plants to milk and flesh. Before the human eate tamed piggs, they eated foxes.


After war I was almost vegan. We eate potato and brown sauce.
Sauce was made from roasted wheat flour, water, salt and pepper. In winter only vegetables in Finland was 50 years ago cabbage, carrot and turnip. And we ate that old yield 10 months.

World biggest cow

 

[Finman]

.
Typical human food

A cold war story about Soviet/ Russian basic home machines 1980:

- what are your normal home machines?
- a refrigerator, a washing machine and a helicopter.
- where you need helicopter?
- if someone is selling sausage somewhere, we must hurry up there before the line starts to develope

 

[oliver90owner]

Brosville,

Darwin will eventually take care of the vegans. No worry for us. Same as the hen that lays cracked eggs; she will have no offspring so the problem will go away - well, it will in that particular lineage.

So, no need to worry about them. Even less, to stir things up with a few fanatics. There are far more important issues to address than that. Like: will all our bees survive the winter?(no); are the mites at a low level?(maybe, but still too many); should importation of foreign bee DNA be stopped?

Homo sapiens is an omnivore, hunter and gatherer and all that. But there will always be a small minority who think differently.

Remember also that honey is 80% sugar and <2% protein typically. That does not mean it should not be part of a healthy diet. Some might simply say why not grow a few more hectares of sugarbeet and forget about the bees......just leave them to get on with their way of life and do what you think is best. You will not change them, only afford them more limetight.

Regards, RAB

 

[shonabee]

I wonder if vegans worry about the exploitation of earthworms in the production of compost? or soil for that matter?
I can see the logic of not drinking milk (involves killing male calves) but.... nah, don't get any of it.

 

[Frisbee]

I can see the logic of not drinking milk (involves killing male calves) but.... nah, don't get any of it.

Huh? Where did that one come from?

It would be true to say that most male calves from the Holstein breed are killed at birth, but it's nothing to do with milk production. Holsteins are bred to produce milk, their male calves don't grow big and lean so are not good meat producers, they take a lot of getting there. In the past they were exported to the low countries for crated veal production, but that has been outlawed now. Nobody wants to buy a male Holstein calf so it is killed at or around birth. Serious Holstein breeders use sexed semen till they have enough female replacements for that year and then use a beef breed bull.

Frisbee

 

[oliver90owner]

Huh? Where did that one come from?

Cows cannot continue to lactate indefinitely, so they are 'dried off' and rested in the latter part of their next pregnancy - ready for the next lactation cycle. At birth, circa 50% are bull calves - and they don't give milk, only feed on it! Hence they are more likely to get the chop as nobody wants all of them.

Regards, RAB

 

[BKF Admin]

Dont argue with Frisbee regards breeding cows,thats my tip for anyone wanting to reply to her posts.

 

[oliver90owner]

admin,

I, too, am reasonably well versed in milk production, albeit a long time ago. Spent quite a few hours on a three legged stool, milking by hand.

Regards, RAB

 

[victor meldrew]

Did you develop those bicept type muscles between thumb and fore finger ??

John Wilkinson

 

[BKF Admin]

I have those muscles.
Not telling how I got them though,but its not what you are thinking.

 

[Frisbee]

Cows cannot continue to lactate indefinitely, so they are 'dried off' and rested in the latter part of their next pregnancy - ready for the next lactation cycle. At birth, circa 50% are bull calves - and they don't give milk, only feed on it! Hence they are more likely to get the chop as nobody wants all of them.

Did you not read any of my post?

Perhaps you would like to go back and read it again.

Then you can tell me which part of using sexed semen you didn't understand.

Why in a post which vaguely appeared to have some knowledge in it you would think I would think male calves gave milk.................

A brief explanation as to why male calves of a certain breed are killed at birth, and ONLY that breed.

Modern milk production has moved on somewhat from the three legged stool.

The phrase Grandmother and sucking eggs springs to mind..........

Frisbee