Hi! Bee farmer family member here. Bees actually overfill their nest, so if the farmer didn't extract the honey, they would completely fill their hive and kill baby bees in order to fill those combs. And the bees protecting their hives don't get hurt-the act of taking the honey doesn't actually harm the animals, and allows the bees to have more honeycombs they can fill with baby bees so the colony doesn't die out! So taking honey doesn't actually harm the animal, much like the act of taking wool
Animals do not require human intervention to carry out their basic biological functions, and the popular myth that they do serves no one except those who wish to profit from exploiting them. Isn’t it just a little bit convenient that the thing which is best for for bees is also the thing which is most profitable for us? Bees got along just fine without us for a few hundred thousand years before we started putting them in managed hives and they’ll flourish again as soon as we’re gone. The idea that animals need to be “saved” from their natural state is completely ridiculous.
This argument is made worse by the fact that what you’re describing is a problem created by human intervention in the first place. This is a design flaw for human made hive structure designed to maximise profit, one which we could easily remedy. That’s why managed hives run by conservation organisations don’t collapse because of “over production.” These are efficient, intelligent, incredibly socially complex animals, they are perfectly capable of managing their own hives and numbers. Wild colonies are not collapsing because they’re producing too much honey and they’re too stupid to properly regulate it, they’re collapsing because of the actions of humans.
A teaspoon of honey represents the life’s work of a single bee, do you really think they’re going to produce more than they need? What is commonly described as “excess” is actually winter food storage, and if it was excess then it wouldn’t be replaced by a sugar syrup substitute, which is still standard industry practice by commercial honey operations. Even if it were excess, why exactly does that entitle you to take it? Do they have to pay “rent” for your care and the space you provide them? Are we just inherently entitled to anything that any being produces simply because we’re human, or are they actually intelligent enough to have signed up to some sort of landlord agreement?
You can make a reasonable argument for managed hives and the benefits they can have for bees, but absolutely none for taking and selling what they produce for profit. That is exploitation by its very definition, and there is no rational argument to suppose that animals need is to profit from them in order to survive. It’s also particularly unfortunate that you use wool as an analogy, considering the fact that sheep are bred to overpriced wool, usually have their lambs taken from them for meat and are almost all slaughtered once their wool most profitable years are over. Exploiting animals for profit is never in their best interests, and the pretense that that they somehow need us to profit from their bodies and their production is absurd and transparently self serving
I’m sure you’re not saying this out of any desire to subvert the truth, this is very likely just what you’ve been told by your family your entire life, so it’s understandable that this is your position. This is the narrative you’ve been fed, so this is what you continue to spread to others. I only ask that you really think about this fully, and put aside your existing biases. Why are we entitled to use animals for profit? Why are we entitled to their bodies and what comes out of them? Why must they benefit us in some way just to be allowed to exist? These are serious questions, and ones few people have ever really sat down to ask themselves, but I would thoroughly encourage you to do so.
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