BEE BARF?! All About HONEY

Is honey vegan? This video is for kids! (but adults can watch too). Today we’re going to talk about how honey is made, which is pretty gross, why taking it from the bees who make it isn’t good for them, and why farming bees isn’t good for the environment.

✧ To comment & resources for this video: https://bitesizevegan.org/bee-barf-all-about-honey-for-kids/
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Hi there! If you’re a kid

and you don't think bee barf sounds like something you want eat, then this video is for you!

[tiny barfing noise]

Ewww.

Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to another vegan nugget. I’m so excited

to be making another video just for you. So
far in my videos for kids we’ve talked about

why we don’t drink milk, or eat meat or
eggs, and heard from real vegan kids about

why they don’t and all the tasty foods they
eat instead, and even talked about how you

can be a superhero for the planet, the people
and the animals by being vegan. You can watch

all of those videos later if you want linked
there and in the video description.

Now just like in my other videos I promise
that I’ll tell you the truth no matter what

and that I won’t talk down to you, cause
you’re pretty smart!

If you don’t know already, being vegan means
you don’t eat animals or anything that comes

out of them like milk, eggs, cheese and, as
we’ll learn today, honey.

So what’s wrong with honey? Well today we’re
going to talk about how honey is made, which

is pretty gross, why taking it from the bees
who make it isn’t good for them, and why

farming bees isn’t good for the environment.

Let’s start with how honey is made. You
probably already know that honey comes from

bees. But even most adults don’t know exactly
how it is that bees make honey. Well bees

fly out to flowers and suck the nectar from
the flowers with this long tongue-like thing

called a proboscis. They keep the honey in
their honey stomach or crop, because unlike

us they have two stomachs and then when they
get back to the hive, they barf. What’s

even grosser is they barf into the mouth of
another bee. Then the bees keep barfing the

honey back and forth between each other until
they finally spit it into their hive for safekeeping.

Now this sounds pretty gross to you and me
and certainly not something I want to be eating.

But for bees, making and eating honey is totally
natural and quite tasty. And honestly, it’s

pretty awesome to see the incredible things
other animals do, and the making of honey

is pretty darn incredible!

Each bee visits 50 to 100 flowers to fill
their honey stomachs. To make just one pound

of honey, bees from the hive have to visit
two million flowers and fly 55,000 miles.

That’s farther than going around the whole
world twice! Bees really are incredible!

In fact, to tell other bees where the good
flowers are, bees will come back to the hive

and do what’s called a waggle dance, where
they shake their booty around and just by

watching what direction the bee is waggling in
and for how long, other bees know where to

find the flowers. It’s all based on some
pretty incredible math and some pretty incredible

booty action. I haven’t gotten it down yet.

This brings me to the second part about why
vegans don’t eat honey. Farming bees isn’t

good for them and taking their honey away,
which is their food and the food they feed

to their little bee babies, certainly isn’t
good for them. Bees need their honey to survive.

They do all of the hard work, literally flying
around the world two times over to make food

for themselves and their families and then
we humans step in and take it to put it on

our breakfast cereals and cinnamon buns. That’s
not very fair if you ask me.

Honey farming also hurts bees. Bees, like
other animals and like us, can feel pain.

And just like we talked about in our videos
about meat, milk and eggs, it doesn’t make

sense to hurt anyone who can feel pain.

For a beehive to work they need a queen bee,
kind of the big bossy momma bee who runs the

show. Now this is part is kind of sad, but
beekeepers have their queen bees and even

their whole bee colonies shipped to them in
the mail. The bees can be injured and even

killed while being shipped and when the queen
arrive the beekeepers often tear off her wings

so that she won’t fly away.

The queen is also forced to be pregnant by
what’s called insemination, which is a big

word and a pretty awful thing for the queen.
She’s stuck in a tube where she can’t

move and poked and prodded.

In the winter, beekeepers often kill the entire
hives, which can be anywhere between 20,000

to 80,000 bees. You may wonder why they do
this. Well, like a lot of other weird things

adults do, it’s because of money.

Now the last thing we’re going to talk about
is how farming bees isn’t good for the environment.

You may hear that we need bees to have food
and that’s true. With all the flying from

flower to flower that they do, bees are doing
something called pollinating, meaning helping

plants make more plants.

But honeybees aren’t the best pollinators.
Other types of bees and insects do a much

better job. Honeybees aren’t even supposed
to be in North America, the continent I live

on, and because humans have brought them here,
the other bees that lived here first and other

insects that pollinate, have been kicked out
and even died from diseases the honeybees

brought with them. We do need bees in order
to have our own food, but we need native bees

and native pollinators to do their work, not
the honeybees.

All in all, honey’s kind of a hot mess.
It’s barfed, chewed, swallowed and re-barfed

by bees, taking it from the bees is super
mean because it’s their food they worked

really hard to make for themselves and their
families, beekeepers harm and even kill bees

in order to farm the honey, and it’s not
good for other bee species or the environment.

So maybe we should just leave honey to the
bees, shall we?

But there’s good news. If you really love
the sweet taste of honey, there are other things

you can have instead. You can use something
called agave nectar, coconut nectar, make

your own date paste, or use a vegan honey
substitute. I have links to all of those and

other resources on the blog post for this
video, which you can find linked up there

and in the description below. And when you
don’t eat honey, you help bees everywhere

feed their little bee babies, and that’s
pretty cool.

I hope this video was helpful. Let me know
what you thought of the video in the comments

and if you have other things you’d like
me to cover, feel free to tell me!

If you liked this video, do give it a thumbs
up and share it around to help other kids

learn the truth. If you’re new here, do
hit that big red subscribe button down there

for more awesome vegan content every Monday,
Wednesday, and some Fridays and to not miss

out the on the rest of my videos for kids.
If you’re an adult and you want to help

support Bite Size Vegan, check out either
of the support links in the video description

below or click on the Nugget Army icon or
the link in the sidebar. Now go live vegan,

leave honey to the bees, and I’ll see you
soon.!

Coming up on Honeybee TV, it’s tonight’s
episode of So You Think You Can Waggle?!,

where the hive’s 40,000 bees square off
in a booty-shaking bonanza to impress the

queen! Stay tuned!