Can you eat bees

However, there are curious folks out there, especially with the popularity of eating other insects on the rise. Jackie Varriano is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest. Save the Bees or Eat the Bees? These chefs are cooking with bees -- and drawing no small controversy. By Jackie Varriano April 28, am.

Leaders who are shaping the future of business in creative ways. New workplaces, new food sources, new medicine--even an entirely new economic system. Is it ethical to eat honey? Although the creation of honey is a natural process, humans extract far more honey from bees than they would otherwise create naturally.

As a result, bees can suffer during all stages of industrialized honey production. Honey is created when bees suck the nectar out of a flower, regurgitate it, and process it with other bees back at the hive.

In their natural states, they use this honey as a food source during winter. As a result, honeybees die of over-exhaustion attempting to reproduce the honey that they require; others die of starvation or malnutrition, while others develop weakened immune systems and contract diseases.

In addition, honeybees suffer harmful growth abnormalities, such as shrunken hypopharyngeal glands , while their hives are being transported from one farm to another. Drone bees are also killed during the artificial insemination process. However, I still prefer just taking people's word for it unless times really get tough. We know that bees are important, and you probably have heard they are dying off rapidly, so one might wonder if it is illegal to kill bees.

It is not illegal to kill bees in the United States normally, but it is generally discouraged. However, there are some laws against using certain pesticides to kill them, as they cause more significant damage to the bee population.

You should definitely not kill bees that you suspect could be the property of a beekeepers' hive. Something to think about is that even if you poison one bee, they may take it to other bees and kill a lot more. If you need to get rid of a pest hive for some reason, you may consider trying to do it without killing the bees.

Here are five things you can use to get rid of bees without having to kill them :. If you use one of these methods, you should be aware these can still cause the bees to get aggravated and possibly sting you.

It is best to apply a spray of these chemicals quickly and leave, or in the case of smoke, try to expose them to it from a safe distance. There were some fascinating studies done to see if bees feel pain. The studies involved injuring bees and offering them pain medication in their food source. They were offered normal syrup and then syrup laced with morphine to see if they would eventually prefer the medicated syrup. It turned out that no matter the injury, they didn't seem to prefer the medicated over the non-medicated food source.

However, don't sleep too tight because bees have been proven to have some self-awareness and can even remember human faces. This is a polarising question. Even some vegans — people who avoid consuming any animal products like dairy, eggs, or gelatin — make exceptions for honey, since buying and eating honey supports beekeepers who in turn care for and protect these important pollinators.

But is this true or is it just a marketing ploy? Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that eating honey does not protect bees at all. On the one hand, it is important to keep in mind that honeybees are only one specific species of bee.

Often, they are even an invasive species and compete with the local bee population. On the other hand, the honey industry has a whole host of problems, and taking honey from bees is by no means as simple as taking only the surplus product of what they would produce anyway. Honey is a source of nutrition for bees themselves.

It is perfectly suited for their needs and gives them the energy to fly around all day collecting pollen. Beekeepers replace honey with a sugar substitute so that the bees now consume inferior food.