I’ve been asked this question many times, and seen it discussed on vegan blogs and forums. The short and most obvious answer is assumed to be ‘no’ (being an animal product) honey is not vegan.* There are, however, many variations in the vegan lifestyle, with some flatly refusing to eat or use any animal products whatsoever and others happy to use certain items if the animals involved are not harmed or exploited. And herein lies the key point: not all honeys are created equal.
Whereas the large-scale commercial beekeeper (collaborating with the large scale commercial farmer and the supermarket giants) is concerned primarily with financial profit, the small-scale local beekeeper is mainly concerned with the welfare of their bees. Honey produced and sold by a small-scale local beekeeper maintaining high standards to produce a high quality product is in a totally different league to the mass-produced supermarket offerings. Many small-scale beekeepers are also enthusiastic gardeners or allotment growers, supporting their local environment to support its local bees and other pollinator insects. Buying and enjoying honey from your local small-scale or hobbyist beekeeper actively supports that beekeeper in their efforts. So yes, while honey is considered an animal product, it very much depends on the ‘where, how, and who’ of that honey’s production, and where you – as a vegan – sit on the sliding scale of veganism. If your blanket rule is ‘no animal products per se.’ then no, you will quite rightly choose not to eat honey. But if your main concern is the ethics and morals of beekeeping practice and the welfare of honeybees, and you want to support the natural environment as a wider whole, then honey from a small-scale local beekeeper could be for you.
* The subject of honey as an ‘animal product’ is open for debate. Some argue that honey is not actually an animal product, because it is not a part of the bee itself (in the same way that eggs, meat, milk and fish are). Honey is the condensed nectar (sweet juice) of flowers. The bees simply collect it, process and store it for future use. This means that honey is a plant product, and therefore (some believe) vegan.
Somewhere in west Cornwall 