Guest guest Posted September 16, 2006 Report Share Posted September 16, 2006 I just wanted to add to the discussion on wool/beeswax etc. It is always important to keep in mind why you are vegan. I am vegan so as to reduce the gross and obvious horrific suffering of feeling animals. So I don't eat meat, dairy, eggs, fish. I am not vegan so as to reach some kind of spiritual karma of perfection in my own body. I aspire to show others how easy and delicious it is to be vegan. Meaning: that it is easy and important to not eat animals and their products. I do not worry about the last .5% of ingredients. Billions of animals die each year to supply our plates with meat and milk and eggs. If you could convince many people to cut out the meat, milk and eggs from their diet, it would save far more animals than if you and a few others were 100%vegan down to the last bit of bone char, honey and beeswax. So, no, I will not tolerate wool in any form. The suffering of sheep in the vast majority of wool production farms is enormous and I cannot support that. But beeswax, while I certainly don't go out of my way to buy it, is not a dealbreaker for me. For example, at a La Leche League meeting I used to attend regularly, another member specially made muffins for my daughter and me to eat. She proudly told me she had replaced the eggs and the dairy. But then suddenly her face fell as she realized that she had used a little bit of honey in her recipe. I don't think it would have helped the animals at all for me to have said, " Oh thanks, but I won't eat them then. " The suffering of honeybees is certainly worth attention, but no one can deny the heartbreaking suffering of laying hens, discarded male chicks, dairy cows and their babies; it is usually only because people do not know how bad it really is that they continue to support it. So while I would not bake muffins in my own home with honey in them, I have no problem eating foods with some honey in them occasionally. Vegan Outreach has a great article on this also: http://www.veganoutreach.org/howvegan.html Also, here is an excerpt from another article on their site: Potential Vegan (PV): Oh, so you're a vegan. I know someone else who is vegan. You know, I really think it's terrible how they treat the animals, but I could never do it. Animal products are in everything, aren't they? Vegan: They are in a lot of things. But you figure out what you can and can't eat and then it becomes easier. PV: It just takes too much discipline for me. Vegan: I could give you a list of the names of all the different possible animal ingredients. There's less than 10,000 of them! And I can give you a list of 500 companies and whether they test on animals or not. It's not so bad. Hey, where are you going? Now our answer goes: Vegan: To me, veganism is not about personal purity, but a way to stop suffering. You don't have to avoid every animal product, just the obvious ones for which an animal was bred, raised, and eventually killed. Some vegans avoid all they can as a symbolic gesture, but minuscule amounts of animal products or by-products will fade away as the meat, dairy, and egg industries fade. Sometimes a potential vegan will say, " I could just never give up ice cream (or cheese, etc.). " Some vegans now reply, " Then give up everything but ice cream. " These types of reactions will often surprise the potential vegan and make them realize that veganism is not about making yourself pure, but about doing what you can to stop suffering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 16, 2006 Report Share Posted September 16, 2006 Very cool. I've never really thought of it that way. I do what I can, and I avoid all I can that's bad, but that's a really neat way to think of it and discuss it with people. Thanks for that! Kadee Sedtal leena <leena wrote: I just wanted to add to the discussion on wool/beeswax etc. It is always important to keep in mind why you are vegan. I am vegan so as to reduce the gross and obvious horrific suffering of feeling animals. So I don't eat meat, dairy, eggs, fish. I am not vegan so as to reach some kind of spiritual karma of perfection in my own body. I aspire to show others how easy and delicious it is to be vegan. Meaning: that it is easy and important to not eat animals and their products. I do not worry about the last .5% of ingredients. Billions of animals die each year to supply our plates with meat and milk and eggs. If you could convince many people to cut out the meat, milk and eggs from their diet, it would save far more animals than if you and a few others were 100%vegan down to the last bit of bone char, honey and beeswax. So, no, I will not tolerate wool in any form. The suffering of sheep in the vast majority of wool production farms is enormous and I cannot support that. But beeswax, while I certainly don't go out of my way to buy it, is not a dealbreaker for me. For example, at a La Leche League meeting I used to attend regularly, another member specially made muffins for my daughter and me to eat. She proudly told me she had replaced the eggs and the dairy. But then suddenly her face fell as she realized that she had used a little bit of honey in her recipe. I don't think it would have helped the animals at all for me to have said, " Oh thanks, but I won't eat them then. " The suffering of honeybees is certainly worth attention, but no one can deny the heartbreaking suffering of laying hens, discarded male chicks, dairy cows and their babies; it is usually only because people do not know how bad it really is that they continue to support it. So while I would not bake muffins in my own home with honey in them, I have no problem eating foods with some honey in them occasionally. Vegan Outreach has a great article on this also: http://www.veganoutreach.org/howvegan.html Also, here is an excerpt from another article on their site: Potential Vegan (PV): Oh, so you're a vegan. I know someone else who is vegan. You know, I really think it's terrible how they treat the animals, but I could never do it. Animal products are in everything, aren't they? Vegan: They are in a lot of things. But you figure out what you can and can't eat and then it becomes easier. PV: It just takes too much discipline for me. Vegan: I could give you a list of the names of all the different possible animal ingredients. There's less than 10,000 of them! And I can give you a list of 500 companies and whether they test on animals or not. It's not so bad. Hey, where are you going? Now our answer goes: Vegan: To me, veganism is not about personal purity, but a way to stop suffering. You don't have to avoid every animal product, just the obvious ones for which an animal was bred, raised, and eventually killed. Some vegans avoid all they can as a symbolic gesture, but minuscule amounts of animal products or by-products will fade away as the meat, dairy, and egg industries fade. Sometimes a potential vegan will say, " I could just never give up ice cream (or cheese, etc.). " Some vegans now reply, " Then give up everything but ice cream. " These types of reactions will often surprise the potential vegan and make them realize that veganism is not about making yourself pure, but about doing what you can to stop suffering. Get on board. You're invited to try the new Mail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 16, 2006 Report Share Posted September 16, 2006 Hi! I was first vegan for animal rights reasons. Later it was animal rights and health reasons. And now its animal rights, health, and Buddhism. My children have been vegan since birth and are " hard core " . They won't make compromises. See, as someone who used to eat meat and dairy, I might look the other way if it was a drop of honey, but somehow I doubt it. But the kids have found it easy to draw line and keep it that way. They understand bees aren't killed to get the honey. They also know that some small farms do have " happy cows and sheep and chickens " but they still don't want to eat any of it. I would never use the word perfection, but some stuff is just out! We have a car, so the tires aren't vegan..This is the compromise. We live 45 minutes away from anything! My husband would like to not have a car, but soo many things would have to change first. What drives me nuts is meat and dairy consumers that bring up the fact that plants are living too! Yeah, I know...What does that have to do with not eating meat and dairy other than to point out I should just give up diet??lol. Just my 2 cents, Rebecca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 16, 2006 Report Share Posted September 16, 2006 whenever they make that stupid plant comment i always make the point that plants don't have a central nervous system and therefore do not feel pain. i really hate that argument; it's just plain ignorant. most commercial honey manufacturers actually DO kill all the bees. they gas them, and not to sleep, but to death. sometimes they will save the queen. but bees create honey in cycles. it's impossible to force them to do differently the way they do cows and chickens. so if they wanted to keep the bees alive, and overwinter them, then they'd have to leave some honey for them, and keep them alive, which is more work then they consider it to be worth, when they can just buy a whole new batch of bees. so most of the time, honey comes from dead bees, and also there's plenty of pesticide trapped in the honey itself from the gas they use. so honey is not our friend. i will very, very occasionally buy honey from a local farmer here that i know overwinters his bees. and i will occasionally use burt's bees products (the baby stuff) because i know they overwinter as well. but overall we try to avoid it, just like we avoid products that use beetles as coloring agents, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 17, 2006 Report Share Posted September 17, 2006 <<and i will occasionally use burt's bees products (the baby stuff)>> Just wanted to point out that many Burt's Bees products have lanolin in them. Liz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 17, 2006 Report Share Posted September 17, 2006 yeah, we don't use those. i really think lanolin is gross stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 17, 2006 Report Share Posted September 17, 2006 I wanted to know how long a bee's natural life span is and why farmers would kill bees so I went to: http://www.honeyflowfarm.com/newsletters/fromourreaders/faq.htm#howlongbeeslive for an answer. Also checked out http://experts.about.com/q/Miscellaneous-885/Life-exspectancy.htm. The answer is: Over winter, the worker bees (female honeybees) can live from 4 to 6 months. During the summer they only live 4 to 6 weeks as they literally " wear " themselves out harvesting honey. The queens can live 2-3 years or more, although the bees will consider her old after 2 years & try to replace her. The honeybees start raising drones (the male bees) in spring & since their only purpose is for reproduction, any still alive in the fall get kicked out to perish. So, I guess I don't understand where the information comes from about honey farmers killing bees? - earthmother Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:40 PM Re: Vegan perfection and compromise whenever they make that stupid plant comment i always make the point that plants don't have a central nervous system and therefore do not feel pain. i really hate that argument; it's just plain ignorant. most commercial honey manufacturers actually DO kill all the bees. they gas them, and not to sleep, but to death. sometimes they will save the queen. but bees create honey in cycles. it's impossible to force them to do differently the way they do cows and chickens. so if they wanted to keep the bees alive, and overwinter them, then they'd have to leave some honey for them, and keep them alive, which is more work then they consider it to be worth, when they can just buy a whole new batch of bees. so most of the time, honey comes from dead bees, and also there's plenty of pesticide trapped in the honey itself from the gas they use. so honey is not our friend. i will very, very occasionally buy honey from a local farmer here that i know overwinters his bees. and i will occasionally use burt's bees products (the baby stuff) because i know they overwinter as well. but overall we try to avoid it, just like we avoid products that use beetles as coloring agents, etc. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] #ygrp-mlmsg { FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-FAMILY: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif}#ygrp-mlmsg TABLE { }#ygrp-mlmsg SELECT { FONT: 99% arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif}INPUT { FONT: 99% arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif}TEXTAREA { FONT: 99% arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif}#ygrp-mlmsg PRE { FONT: 100% monospace}CODE { FONT: 100% monospace}#ygrp-mlmsg { LINE-HEIGHT: 1.22em}#ygrp-text { FONT-FAMILY: Georgia}#ygrp-text P { MARGIN: 0px 0px 1em}#ygrp-tpmsgs { CLEAR: both; FONT-FAMILY: Arial}#ygrp-vitnav { FONT-SIZE: 77%; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 10px; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana}#ygrp-vitnav A { PADDING-RIGHT: 1px; PADDING-LEFT: 1px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px}#ygrp-actbar { CLEAR: both; MARGIN: 25px 0px; COLOR: #666; WHITE-SPACE: nowrap; TEXT-ALIGN: right}#ygrp-actbar .left { FLOAT: left; WHITE-SPACE: nowrap}..bld { FONT-WEIGHT: bold}#ygrp-grft { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 77%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 15px; PADDING-TOP: 15px; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana}#ygrp-ft { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: #666 1px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 77%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; PADDING-TOP: 5px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana}#ygrp-mlmsg #logo { PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px}#ygrp-vital { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 8px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 20px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 8px; PADDING-TOP: 2px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e0ecee}#ygrp-vital #vithd { FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 77%; TEXT-TRANSFORM: uppercase; COLOR: #333; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana}#ygrp-vital UL { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 2px 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px}#ygrp-vital UL LI { CLEAR: both; BORDER-RIGHT: #e0ecee 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #e0ecee 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #e0ecee 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #e0ecee 1px solid; LIST-STYLE-TYPE: none}#ygrp-vital UL LI .ct { PADDING-RIGHT: 0.5em; FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FLOAT: right; WIDTH: 2em; COLOR: #ff7900; TEXT-ALIGN: right}#ygrp-vital UL LI .cat { FONT-WEIGHT: bold}#ygrp-vital A { TEXT-DECORATION: none}#ygrp-vital A:hover { TEXT-DECORATION: underline}#ygrp-sponsor #hd { FONT-SIZE: 77%; COLOR: #999}#ygrp-sponsor #ov { PADDING-RIGHT: 13px; PADDING-LEFT: 13px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 20px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 6px; PADDING-TOP: 6px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e0ecee}#ygrp-sponsor #ov UL { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 8px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px}#ygrp-sponsor #ov LI { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 77%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 6px; PADDING-TOP: 6px; LIST-STYLE-TYPE: square}#ygrp-sponsor #ov LI A { FONT-SIZE: 130%; TEXT-DECORATION: none}#ygrp-sponsor #nc { PADDING-RIGHT: 8px; PADDING-LEFT: 8px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 20px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #eee}#ygrp-sponsor .ad { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 8px; PADDING-TOP: 8px}#ygrp-sponsor .ad #hd1 { FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 100%; COLOR: #628c2a; LINE-HEIGHT: 122%; FONT-FAMILY: Arial}#ygrp-sponsor .ad A { TEXT-DECORATION: none}#ygrp-sponsor .ad A:hover { TEXT-DECORATION: underline}#ygrp-sponsor .ad P { MARGIN: 0px}o { FONT-SIZE: 0px}..MsoNormal { MARGIN: 0px}#ygrp-text TT { FONT-SIZE: 120%}BLOCKQUOTE { MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 4px}..replbq { } Talk is cheap. 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Guest guest Posted September 17, 2006 Report Share Posted September 17, 2006 To me, nothing is more gross than putting petroleum byproducts on skin. earthmother <earthmother213 wrote: yeah, we don't use those. i really think lanolin is gross stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 17, 2006 Report Share Posted September 17, 2006 What can I use as alternatives to wool diaper covers? We have some wool diaper covers. I feel better using them than plastic or synthetic. But the wool of course is not vegan and neither is the lanolin used to treat it. I'll check the vrg website. ~Paul earthmother wrote: > yeah, we don't use those. i really think lanolin is gross stuff! -- www.mackenziewild.ca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 Burt's Bee's Products also have insect parts . Do we really want to use products with insects ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 If they are really serious about the matter, rather than just pulling your chain, you can point out that many more plants are killed eating meat because of the way a cow has to eat 14 pounds of grain to create one pound of flesh, etc. - Alan , earthmother <earthmother213 wrote: > > whenever they make that stupid plant comment i always make the point that > plants don't have a central nervous system and therefore do not feel pain. > i really hate that argument; it's just plain ignorant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 hm...that's really interesting! i guess i better figure out what the crap i'm talking about! i'm not usually the type to take information at face value but i won't say it's not possible. ok, i went to downbound and looked up the peta factsheet on bees. here it is (with resources): Honey: From Factory-Farmed Bees ------------------------------ Although there were 3,500 native species of bees pollinating the flowers and food crops of North America when European settlers landed on its shores in the 17th century, the colonists were interested only in their Old World honeybee's wax and honey. So they imported the insects, and by the mid-1800s, both feral and domesticated colonies of honeybees were scattered all over the United States.(1) As a result of disease, pesticides, and climate changes, the honeybee population is now in decline, but since the demand for honey remains high, these tiny beings are factory- farmed, much like chickens, pigs, and cows. *The Complex Lives of Bees* A honeybee hive consists of tens of thousands of bees, each with his or her own mission that is determined by the bee's sex and age and by the time of year. Each hive usually has one queen, hundreds of drones, and thousands of workers. Queens can live for as long as seven years, while other bees have lifespans ranging from a few weeks to six months.(2) Worker bees are responsible for feeding the brood, caring for the queen, building comb, foraging for nectar and pollen, and cleaning, ventilating, and guarding the hive. The drones serve the queen, who is responsible for reproduction. She lays about 250,000 eggs each year—as many as a million during her lifetime.(3) When a new queen is about to be born, the old queen and half the hive leave their old home and set up in a new place that scouting worker bees have found.(4) As the temperature drops in the winter, the bees cluster around the queen and the young, using their body heat to keep the temperature inside the hive steady at around 93°F.(5) *A Language All Their Own* Bees have a unique and complex form of communication based on sight, motion, and scent that scientists and scholars still don't fully understand.(6) Bees alert other members of their hive to food, new hive locations, and conditions within their hive (such as nectar supply) through intricate " dance " movements.(7) Studies have shown that bees are not only capable of abstract thought, they are also capable of distinguishing their own family members from other bees in the hive, using visual cues to map their travels, and finding a previously used food supply, even when their home has been moved.(8, 9, 10) And in the same way that smells can invoke powerful memories in humans, bees use their sense of smell to trigger memories of where the best food can be found.(11) *Why Bees Need Their Honey *Plants produce nectar to attract pollinators (bees, butterflies, bats, and other mammals), who are necessary for successful plant reproduction. Bees collect and use nectar to make honey, which provides vital nourishment for them, especially during the winter. Since nectar contains a lot of water, bees have to work to dry it out, and they add enzymes from their own bodies to convert it into food and prevent it from going bad.(12) To produce a pound of honey, bees must get pollen from two million flowers and fly more than 55,000 miles.(13) *Honeybees Do Not Pollinate as Well as Native Bees* Approximately one out of every three mouthfuls of food or drink that humans consume is made possible by pollinators—insects, birds, and mammals pollinate about 75 percent of all food crops.(14) Industrial beekeepers want consumers to believe that honey is just a byproduct of the necessary pollination provided by honeybees, but honeybees are not as good at pollinating as many truly wild bees, such as bumblebees and carpenter and digger bees. Native bees are active earlier in the spring, both male and females pollinate, and they are unaffected by mites and Africanized bees, which can harm honeybees.(15) But because most species of native bees hibernate for as many as 11 months out of the year and do not live in large colonies, they do not produce massive amounts of honey, and what little they do produce is not worth the effort required to steal it from them.(16, 17) So although native bees are more effective pollinators, farmers continue to rely on factory-farmed honeybees for pollination so that the honey industry can take in more than 170 million pounds of honey every year, at a value of more than $200 million.(18) *Manipulating Nature *Profiting from honey requires the manipulation and exploitation of the insects' desire to live and protect their hive. Like other factory-farmed animals, honeybees are victims of unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation. The familiar white box that serves as a beehive has been around since the mid-1850s and was created so that beekeepers could move the hives from place to place. *The New York Times *reported that bees have been " moved from shapes that accommodated their own geometry to flat-topped tenements, sentenced to life in file cabinets. " (19) Since " swarming " (the division of the hive upon the birth of a new queen) can cause a decline in honey production, beekeepers do what they can to prevent it, including clipping the wings of a new queen, killing and replacing an older queen after just one or two years, or confining a queen who is trying to begin a swarm.(20, 21) There are also commercial " queen rearers " who raise and mail about a million queen bees a year all over North America. Many of the animals die in transit.(22) Queens are artificially inseminated using drones, who are killed in the process.(23) Commercial beekeepers also " trick " queens into laying more eggs by adding wax cells to the hive that are larger than those that worker bees would normally build.(24) Some farmers kill all the bees in the fall because it's easier than winterizing the hives. One beekeeper admits that one of his friends " uses canisters of cyanide gas to exterminate 6,000 colonies of bees at the conclusion of the production season. It is the most economical way to run his operation. " (25) Each hive that is left to hibernate through the winter needs at least 50 pounds of honey to survive, and according to one entomologist, many bees succumb to improper care, starvation, weakness, and other problems during the winter.(26) Honeybee populations have declined by as much as 50 percent since the 1980s, partly because of parasitic mites.(27) *BeeCulture* magazine reports that beekeepers are notorious for contributing to the spread of disease: " Beekeepers move infected combs from diseased colonies to healthy colonies, fail to recognize or treat disease, purchase old infected equipment, keep colonies too close together, [and] leave dead colonies in apiaries. " (28) Artificial diets, provided because farmers take the honey that bees would normally eat, leave bees susceptible to sickness and attack from other insects.(29) When diseases are detected, beekeepers are advised to " destroy the colony and burn the equipment, " which can mean burning or gassing the bees to death.(30) Since healthy honeybees are becoming harder and harder to find, farmers have resorted to trucking hives across the country. When asked to examine 2,000 beehives rented by a New Jersey cranberry farmer, retired apiary inspectors found " about 500 colonies with equipment in such bad shape that [it] would not even qualify as junk … mice nests, old feeders full of comb, rotten hive with bees coming out from all over. " The hives were also made of wood that was labeled as having been treated with arsenic and was, therefore, unsuitable for beehives.(31) Bears are also victims of the honey industry. The government of Maryland compensates beekeepers for electric fences around hives, and Virginia beekeepers have asked their legislature to allow them to kill bears.(32) *What You Can Do *Avoid honey, beeswax, propolis, royal jelly, and other products that come from bees. Vegan lip balms and candles are readily available. Visit CaringConsumer.com for a list of companies that don't use animal products. Rice syrup, molasses, sorghum, barley malt, maple syrup, and dried fruit or fruit concentrates can be used to replace honey in recipes. Call 1-888-VEG-FOOD or visit GoVeg.com to order a free vegetarian starter kit that contains information about compassionate eating choices. *Resources* (1)Sue Hubbell, " Trouble With Honeybees, " *Natural History*, 106 (1997): 32-42. (2) " The Colony and Its Organization<http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/bkCD/HBBiology/colony_org.html>, " *Fundamentals of Beekeeping*, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extention Consortium, last accessed 17 May 2004. (3)*Ibid*. (4)Norbert M. Kauffeld, " Seasonal Cycles of Activities in Honey Bee Colonies, " *Beekeeping in the United States*, Agriculture Handbook 335, U.S. Department of Agriculture, revised Oct. 1980. (5)*Ibid*. (6)Fred C. Dyer, " When It Pays to Waggle, " *Nature,* 31 Oct. 2002. (7)Carl Anderson and Francis L.W. Ratnieks, " Worker Allocation in Insect Societies: Coordination of Nectar Foragers and Nectar Receivers in Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Colonies, " *Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology* (1999): 73-81. (8)Martin Glurfa, " The Concepts of 'Sameness' and 'Difference' in an Insect, " *Nature*, 19 Apr. 2001. (9)Fred C. Dyer, " Spatial Memory and Navigation by Honeybees on the Scale of the Foraging Range, " *The Journal of Experimental Biology* 199 (1996): 147-154. (10)Gerard Arnold *et al*., " Kin Recognition in Honeybees, " *Nature*, 8 Feb. 1996. (11)Judith Reinhard *et al*., " Scent-Triggered Navigation in Honeybees, " * Nature*, 29 Jan. 2004. (12)Maryann Frazier, " Honey—Here's to Your Health, " *Beeaware, Notes and News on Bees & Beekeeping*, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, Jan. 2003. (13) " Number of Flowers for 1 Pound Honey, " Canadian Honey Council, 15 May 2003. (14) " The Value of Pollinators <http://pollinators.nbii.gov/declines.html>, " Pollinator Declines Node, National Biological Information Infrastructure, U.S. Geological Service, last accessed 17 May 2004. (15)Lane Greer, " Alternative Pollinators: Native Bees, " Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Aug. 1999. (16)*Ibid*. (17)*Ibid. *(18)U.S. Department of Agriculture, " Honey: Number of Colonies, Yield, Production, Stocks, Price and Value, United States, 1993-2002, " *Agricultural Statistics 2003 *. (19)Anne Raver, " Bees Buzz a Path to His Hive, " *The New York Times*, 31 May 2001. (20)*Ibid*. (21)Elbert R. Jaycox, " Miscellaneous Techniques in Beekeeping, " *Beekeeping in the Midwest*, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois, reprinted Apr. 1985. (22)Everett Oertel, " History of Beekeeping in the United States, " *Beekeeping in the United States, * Agriculture Handbook 335, U.S. Department of Agriculture, revised Oct. 1980. (23)Dr. Peter Schley, " Short Instruction<http://www.besamungsgeraet.de/shortin.phtml>, " last accessed 17 May 2004. (24)Raver. (25)Mary Hardison, " Toward an Appropriate Beehive, " *Seed and Harvest*, Aug. 1992. (26)Clarence H. Collison, " Fall Management, " Mississippi State University, 17 Feb. 1999. (27)Michelle Boorstein, " Beekeepers Struggle to Save Buzz, " *The Washington Post*, 25 Apr. 2004. (28)Nicolas Calderone, " Managing Brood Diseases, " *BeeCulture*, May 2001. (29)Dee A. Lusby, " Suggested Biological Manipulative Field Management for Control of Honeybee Mites. Part #1 Concept & Causes, " <http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/part21.htm>BeeSource.com, 2000. (30)Calderone. (31)Dewey M. Caron, " Pollination Rental Colony Assessments, " *Beeaware, Notes and News on Bees & Beekeeping*, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, Jan. 2003. (32)Boorstein. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 I don't see what the adversion is to wool. Sheep have to be sheared every spring regardless. Yikes, as scratchy and hot as wool is, who would ever use those as diaper covers?????????? - Paul Falvo Sunday, September 17, 2006 12:52 PM Re: Vegan perfection and compromise What can I use as alternatives to wool diaper covers? We have some wool diaper covers. I feel better using them than plastic or synthetic. But the wool of course is not vegan and neither is the lanolin used to treat it. I'll check the vrg website. ~Paul earthmother wrote: > yeah, we don't use those. i really think lanolin is gross stuff! -- www.mackenziewild.ca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 i agree. we do try to avoid those too. over the past year we've actually eradicated almost all of our personal use products. my son isn't really a baby anymore so we don't use burt's bees stuff much anymore (plus, it's way expensive, so i don't imagine we'll be using it when this baby comes). we use organic hemp diapers with recycled covers and recycled fleece wipes with vinegar/water and that's all we put on his butt! my husband has eczema and we went through pretty much every product in the book before settling on an internal regimen of evening primrose and flax oil and an external regimen of palm oil and borage with the occasional homeopathic when he flares up. i make my own soap and shampoo and to wash our clothes and diapers we use vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils. for deodorant we use the rock, i don't shave anymore, and my husband grew out his beard (he does trim it though). my one personal indulgence is the kiss my face patchouli lotion. baby steps, ya know, but we're making as many personal changes as seem feasible at the time, not just for the animals, but our own health. it's amazing how having a child really makes you reevaluate what is essential and how much harm and hypocrisy you will allow yourself to commit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 i have indeed heard that wool is the best. i wish i could use it in good conscience, but i just can't. one option is to go without a cover. obviously this is not feasible in public or for extended periods like naps and at night. but during the day, and on trips when it's feasible, my son (18 mos.) is either naked or in a hemp prefold (not naked on trips, haha). i really think it's disgusting and dehumanizing to leave a baby in a wet diaper and with it like this, he gets changed just as often as he deserves! as for covers, well, we've accepted the necessary evil of recycled PUL covers. it wouldn't be my first choice and if i knew someone who made wool diapers from their very own well-cared-for sheep, then maybe i would consider it, but i won't buy them commercially. i'm not sure what other options there are than PUL and wool. sometimes we have to make compromises. for some people the compromise is using wool because it's easier on the planet, while for others it's PUL because it's easier on the animals, and i wouldn't say either way is right or wrong. it really depends on each family individually. i have a wool allergy, albeit a mild one, so i can't say i'd use them anyway. personally, i think anything is better than disposables and i probably wouldn't pass judgment even if someone was using leather diaper covers as long as they weren't using disposables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 I truly do not mean this to be disrespecful, but do those of you who work so hard for the rights of animal feel as strongly about humans? Do you buy fairly traded coffee, chocolate, etc.? Do you buy clothing that is sweatshop free? Mary Borden <maresydotes63 wrote: I wanted to know how long a bee's natural life span is and why farmers would kill bees so I went to: http://www.honeyflowfarm.com/newsletters/fromourreaders/faq.htm#howlongbeeslive for an answer. Also checked out http://experts.about.com/q/Miscellaneous-885/Life-exspectancy.htm. The answer is: Over winter, the worker bees (female honeybees) can live from 4 to 6 months. During the summer they only live 4 to 6 weeks as they literally " wear " themselves out harvesting honey. The queens can live 2-3 years or more, although the bees will consider her old after 2 years & try to replace her. The honeybees start raising drones (the male bees) in spring & since their only purpose is for reproduction, any still alive in the fall get kicked out to perish. So, I guess I don't understand where the information comes from about honey farmers killing bees? - earthmother Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:40 PM Re: Vegan perfection and compromise whenever they make that stupid plant comment i always make the point that plants don't have a central nervous system and therefore do not feel pain. i really hate that argument; it's just plain ignorant. most commercial honey manufacturers actually DO kill all the bees. they gas them, and not to sleep, but to death. sometimes they will save the queen. but bees create honey in cycles. it's impossible to force them to do differently the way they do cows and chickens. so if they wanted to keep the bees alive, and overwinter them, then they'd have to leave some honey for them, and keep them alive, which is more work then they consider it to be worth, when they can just buy a whole new batch of bees. so most of the time, honey comes from dead bees, and also there's plenty of pesticide trapped in the honey itself from the gas they use. so honey is not our friend. i will very, very occasionally buy honey from a local farmer here that i know overwinters his bees. and i will occasionally use burt's bees products (the baby stuff) because i know they overwinter as well. but overall we try to avoid it, just like we avoid products that use beetles as coloring agents, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 robin -- yes! actually, we can't afford to buy sweatshop-free most of the time, so we buy only used clothing...used everything, actually, as much as we can handle. the toys for our son are always wooden and made by small family businesses, never plastic from china, etc. we don't drink coffee or use chocolate (carob instead mostly), so those aren't issues, but i stopped buying dried herbs (growing them myself, or farmers' markets) and i won't buy sugar unless it's fairly traded, etc., and we try to eat only in season and buy locally (which is really hard and sometimes impossible, but we try)...there's only so much some of us can do, but the effort is what counts, i think. correcting injustices to humans, or at least not participating if we can help it, is the first line of defense in making this a more peaceful world. there are a lot of issues with wool. you can go here to see why: http://www.downbound.com/Wool_s/271.htm our main problems are with " collateral damage, " mulesing, and shipment of animals. chandelle' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 no. like i said, we don't really have an excuse to use them anymore. we went vegan when our son was 3 weeks old, and we already had a bunch of burt's bees products that we used throughout his infancy. are you talking about the royal jelly, etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 I do care just as much for human rights as animal rights. I buy second hand or sweatshop-free clothing, and only buy fair-trade chocolate. I think that compassion should be an all-encompassing approach from how we interact with others to how we spend our dollars. That said, none of us is perfect. We're trying to do our best. Even if we can't achieve perfection (which I think is more ego-driven than compassion-driven, probably), that doesn't mean we should give up trying to make positive change. I've seen too many people throw up their arms and say, " You know, I'm not going to solve the world's problems by myself, so I'm not going to do anything. " That's so unfortunate. Also, I've had many people say to me as a vegan advocate, " Well, what about the homeless? What about AIDS? " , like my compassion for animals somehow takes away work toward these other issues. First of all, someone who asks that, in my opinion, is looking to others to do all the work of the world and they need to look within. Second, animals cannot speak up for themselves - not in a way we can understand, anyway - so I feel I need to raise my voice for them. So, a long rant to your simple question, Robin, but obviously I've got some strong feelings on this! Peace, Marla > I truly do not mean this to be disrespecful, but do those of you who work so > hard for the rights of animal feel as strongly about humans? Do you buy > fairly traded coffee, chocolate, etc.? Do you buy clothing that is sweatshop > free? > > > Mary Borden <maresydotes63 wrote: > I wanted to know how long a bee's natural life span is and why farmers would > kill bees so I went to: > http://www.honeyflowfarm.com/newsletters/fromourreaders/faq.htm#howlongbeesliv > e for an answer. Also checked out > http://experts.about.com/q/Miscellaneous-885/Life-exspectancy.htm. > > The answer is: Over winter, the worker bees (female honeybees) can live from 4 > to 6 months. During the summer they only live 4 to 6 weeks as they literally > " wear " themselves out harvesting honey. The queens can live 2-3 years or more, > although the bees will consider her old after 2 years & try to replace her. > The honeybees start raising drones (the male bees) in spring & since their > only purpose is for reproduction, any still alive in the fall get kicked out > to perish. > > So, I guess I don't understand where the information comes from about honey > farmers killing bees? > > - > earthmother > > Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:40 PM > Re: Vegan perfection and compromise > > > > whenever they make that stupid plant comment i always make the point that > plants don't have a central nervous system and therefore do not feel pain. > i really hate that argument; it's just plain ignorant. > > most commercial honey manufacturers actually DO kill all the bees. they gas > them, and not to sleep, but to death. sometimes they will save the queen. > but bees create honey in cycles. it's impossible to force them to do > differently the way they do cows and chickens. so if they wanted to keep > the bees alive, and overwinter them, then they'd have to leave some honey > for them, and keep them alive, which is more work then they consider it to > be worth, when they can just buy a whole new batch of bees. so most of the > time, honey comes from dead bees, and also there's plenty of pesticide > trapped in the honey itself from the gas they use. so honey is not our > friend. i will very, very occasionally buy honey from a local farmer here > that i know overwinters his bees. and i will occasionally use burt's bees > products (the baby stuff) because i know they overwinter as well. but > overall we try to avoid it, just like we avoid products that use beetles as > coloring agents, etc. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 That is terrible. We don't use much honey anyway, but there's a good reason to stop. PETA seems to have lots of cool information on different animals. I have pet rats, and PETA's fact sheet on them had several bits of information I didn't even know after months of researching them. Very neat. Kadee Sedtal earthmother <earthmother213 wrote: hm...that's really interesting! i guess i better figure out what the crap i'm talking about! i'm not usually the type to take information at face value but i won't say it's not possible. ok, i went to downbound and looked up the peta factsheet on bees. here it is (with resources): Honey: From Factory-Farmed Bees ------------------------------ Although there were 3,500 native species of bees pollinating the flowers and food crops of North America when European settlers landed on its shores in the 17th century, the colonists were interested only in their Old World honeybee's wax and honey. So they imported the insects, and by the mid-1800s, both feral and domesticated colonies of honeybees were scattered all over the United States.(1) As a result of disease, pesticides, and climate changes, the honeybee population is now in decline, but since the demand for honey remains high, these tiny beings are factory- farmed, much like chickens, pigs, and cows. *The Complex Lives of Bees* A honeybee hive consists of tens of thousands of bees, each with his or her own mission that is determined by the bee's sex and age and by the time of year. Each hive usually has one queen, hundreds of drones, and thousands of workers. Queens can live for as long as seven years, while other bees have lifespans ranging from a few weeks to six months.(2) Worker bees are responsible for feeding the brood, caring for the queen, building comb, foraging for nectar and pollen, and cleaning, ventilating, and guarding the hive. The drones serve the queen, who is responsible for reproduction. She lays about 250,000 eggs each year—as many as a million during her lifetime.(3) When a new queen is about to be born, the old queen and half the hive leave their old home and set up in a new place that scouting worker bees have found.(4) As the temperature drops in the winter, the bees cluster around the queen and the young, using their body heat to keep the temperature inside the hive steady at around 93°F.(5) *A Language All Their Own* Bees have a unique and complex form of communication based on sight, motion, and scent that scientists and scholars still don't fully understand.(6) Bees alert other members of their hive to food, new hive locations, and conditions within their hive (such as nectar supply) through intricate " dance " movements.(7) Studies have shown that bees are not only capable of abstract thought, they are also capable of distinguishing their own family members from other bees in the hive, using visual cues to map their travels, and finding a previously used food supply, even when their home has been moved.(8, 9, 10) And in the same way that smells can invoke powerful memories in humans, bees use their sense of smell to trigger memories of where the best food can be found.(11) *Why Bees Need Their Honey *Plants produce nectar to attract pollinators (bees, butterflies, bats, and other mammals), who are necessary for successful plant reproduction. Bees collect and use nectar to make honey, which provides vital nourishment for them, especially during the winter. Since nectar contains a lot of water, bees have to work to dry it out, and they add enzymes from their own bodies to convert it into food and prevent it from going bad.(12) To produce a pound of honey, bees must get pollen from two million flowers and fly more than 55,000 miles.(13) *Honeybees Do Not Pollinate as Well as Native Bees* Approximately one out of every three mouthfuls of food or drink that humans consume is made possible by pollinators—insects, birds, and mammals pollinate about 75 percent of all food crops.(14) Industrial beekeepers want consumers to believe that honey is just a byproduct of the necessary pollination provided by honeybees, but honeybees are not as good at pollinating as many truly wild bees, such as bumblebees and carpenter and digger bees. Native bees are active earlier in the spring, both male and females pollinate, and they are unaffected by mites and Africanized bees, which can harm honeybees.(15) But because most species of native bees hibernate for as many as 11 months out of the year and do not live in large colonies, they do not produce massive amounts of honey, and what little they do produce is not worth the effort required to steal it from them.(16, 17) So although native bees are more effective pollinators, farmers continue to rely on factory-farmed honeybees for pollination so that the honey industry can take in more than 170 million pounds of honey every year, at a value of more than $200 million.(18) *Manipulating Nature *Profiting from honey requires the manipulation and exploitation of the insects' desire to live and protect their hive. Like other factory-farmed animals, honeybees are victims of unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation. The familiar white box that serves as a beehive has been around since the mid-1850s and was created so that beekeepers could move the hives from place to place. *The New York Times *reported that bees have been " moved from shapes that accommodated their own geometry to flat-topped tenements, sentenced to life in file cabinets. " (19) Since " swarming " (the division of the hive upon the birth of a new queen) can cause a decline in honey production, beekeepers do what they can to prevent it, including clipping the wings of a new queen, killing and replacing an older queen after just one or two years, or confining a queen who is trying to begin a swarm.(20, 21) There are also commercial " queen rearers " who raise and mail about a million queen bees a year all over North America. Many of the animals die in transit.(22) Queens are artificially inseminated using drones, who are killed in the process.(23) Commercial beekeepers also " trick " queens into laying more eggs by adding wax cells to the hive that are larger than those that worker bees would normally build.(24) Some farmers kill all the bees in the fall because it's easier than winterizing the hives. One beekeeper admits that one of his friends " uses canisters of cyanide gas to exterminate 6,000 colonies of bees at the conclusion of the production season. It is the most economical way to run his operation. " (25) Each hive that is left to hibernate through the winter needs at least 50 pounds of honey to survive, and according to one entomologist, many bees succumb to improper care, starvation, weakness, and other problems during the winter.(26) Honeybee populations have declined by as much as 50 percent since the 1980s, partly because of parasitic mites.(27) *BeeCulture* magazine reports that beekeepers are notorious for contributing to the spread of disease: " Beekeepers move infected combs from diseased colonies to healthy colonies, fail to recognize or treat disease, purchase old infected equipment, keep colonies too close together, [and] leave dead colonies in apiaries. " (28) Artificial diets, provided because farmers take the honey that bees would normally eat, leave bees susceptible to sickness and attack from other insects.(29) When diseases are detected, beekeepers are advised to " destroy the colony and burn the equipment, " which can mean burning or gassing the bees to death.(30) Since healthy honeybees are becoming harder and harder to find, farmers have resorted to trucking hives across the country. When asked to examine 2,000 beehives rented by a New Jersey cranberry farmer, retired apiary inspectors found " about 500 colonies with equipment in such bad shape that [it] would not even qualify as junk … mice nests, old feeders full of comb, rotten hive with bees coming out from all over. " The hives were also made of wood that was labeled as having been treated with arsenic and was, therefore, unsuitable for beehives.(31) Bears are also victims of the honey industry. The government of Maryland compensates beekeepers for electric fences around hives, and Virginia beekeepers have asked their legislature to allow them to kill bears.(32) *What You Can Do *Avoid honey, beeswax, propolis, royal jelly, and other products that come from bees. Vegan lip balms and candles are readily available. Visit CaringConsumer.com for a list of companies that don't use animal products. Rice syrup, molasses, sorghum, barley malt, maple syrup, and dried fruit or fruit concentrates can be used to replace honey in recipes. Call 1-888-VEG-FOOD or visit GoVeg.com to order a free vegetarian starter kit that contains information about compassionate eating choices. *Resources* (1)Sue Hubbell, " Trouble With Honeybees, " *Natural History*, 106 (1997): 32-42. (2) " The Colony and Its Organization, " *Fundamentals of Beekeeping*, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extention Consortium, last accessed 17 May 2004. (3)*Ibid*. (4)Norbert M. Kauffeld, " Seasonal Cycles of Activities in Honey Bee Colonies, " *Beekeeping in the United States*, Agriculture Handbook 335, U.S. Department of Agriculture, revised Oct. 1980. (5)*Ibid*. (6)Fred C. Dyer, " When It Pays to Waggle, " *Nature,* 31 Oct. 2002. (7)Carl Anderson and Francis L.W. Ratnieks, " Worker Allocation in Insect Societies: Coordination of Nectar Foragers and Nectar Receivers in Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Colonies, " *Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology* (1999): 73-81. (8)Martin Glurfa, " The Concepts of 'Sameness' and 'Difference' in an Insect, " *Nature*, 19 Apr. 2001. (9)Fred C. Dyer, " Spatial Memory and Navigation by Honeybees on the Scale of the Foraging Range, " *The Journal of Experimental Biology* 199 (1996): 147-154. (10)Gerard Arnold *et al*., " Kin Recognition in Honeybees, " *Nature*, 8 Feb. 1996. (11)Judith Reinhard *et al*., " Scent-Triggered Navigation in Honeybees, " * Nature*, 29 Jan. 2004. (12)Maryann Frazier, " Honey—Here's to Your Health, " *Beeaware, Notes and News on Bees & Beekeeping*, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, Jan. 2003. (13) " Number of Flowers for 1 Pound Honey, " Canadian Honey Council, 15 May 2003. (14) " The Value of Pollinators , " Pollinator Declines Node, National Biological Information Infrastructure, U.S. Geological Service, last accessed 17 May 2004. (15)Lane Greer, " Alternative Pollinators: Native Bees, " Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Aug. 1999. (16)*Ibid*. (17)*Ibid. *(18)U.S. Department of Agriculture, " Honey: Number of Colonies, Yield, Production, Stocks, Price and Value, United States, 1993-2002, " *Agricultural Statistics 2003 *. (19)Anne Raver, " Bees Buzz a Path to His Hive, " *The New York Times*, 31 May 2001. (20)*Ibid*. (21)Elbert R. Jaycox, " Miscellaneous Techniques in Beekeeping, " *Beekeeping in the Midwest*, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois, reprinted Apr. 1985. (22)Everett Oertel, " History of Beekeeping in the United States, " *Beekeeping in the United States, * Agriculture Handbook 335, U.S. Department of Agriculture, revised Oct. 1980. (23)Dr. Peter Schley, " Short Instruction, " last accessed 17 May 2004. (24)Raver. (25)Mary Hardison, " Toward an Appropriate Beehive, " *Seed and Harvest*, Aug. 1992. (26)Clarence H. Collison, " Fall Management, " Mississippi State University, 17 Feb. 1999. (27)Michelle Boorstein, " Beekeepers Struggle to Save Buzz, " *The Washington Post*, 25 Apr. 2004. (28)Nicolas Calderone, " Managing Brood Diseases, " *BeeCulture*, May 2001. (29)Dee A. Lusby, " Suggested Biological Manipulative Field Management for Control of Honeybee Mites. Part #1 Concept & Causes, " BeeSource.com, 2000. (30)Calderone. (31)Dewey M. Caron, " Pollination Rental Colony Assessments, " *Beeaware, Notes and News on Bees & Beekeeping*, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, Jan. 2003. (32)Boorstein. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 Please tell me about this stuff! Especially about the eczema treatment. My son and I have it and it's driving me crazy. Plus this about making your own shampoo and laundry detergent. That'd certainly be something to try. I have no idea what's in my shampoo, and even some of the unscented, dye-free detergents irritate our skin. Please share! Kadee Sedtal earthmother <earthmother213 wrote: i agree. we do try to avoid those too. over the past year we've actually eradicated almost all of our personal use products. my son isn't really a baby anymore so we don't use burt's bees stuff much anymore (plus, it's way expensive, so i don't imagine we'll be using it when this baby comes). we use organic hemp diapers with recycled covers and recycled fleece wipes with vinegar/water and that's all we put on his butt! my husband has eczema and we went through pretty much every product in the book before settling on an internal regimen of evening primrose and flax oil and an external regimen of palm oil and borage with the occasional homeopathic when he flares up. i make my own soap and shampoo and to wash our clothes and diapers we use vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils. for deodorant we use the rock, i don't shave anymore, and my husband grew out his beard (he does trim it though). my one personal indulgence is the kiss my face patchouli lotion. baby steps, ya know, but we're making as many personal changes as seem feasible at the time, not just for the animals, but our own health. it's amazing how having a child really makes you reevaluate what is essential and how much harm and hypocrisy you will allow yourself to commit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 I choose American-made products as much as I possibly can. Here in America people have choices. Other countries, maybe not. But here they do, and we do have a minimum wage and welfare and all that, so I know whoever made whatever I'm using isn't starving. Probably quite the opposite! Kadee Sedtal robin koloms <rkoloms wrote: I truly do not mean this to be disrespecful, but do those of you who work so hard for the rights of animal feel as strongly about humans? Do you buy fairly traded coffee, chocolate, etc.? Do you buy clothing that is sweatshop free? Mary Borden <maresydotes63 wrote: I wanted to know how long a bee's natural life span is and why farmers would kill bees so I went to: http://www.honeyflowfarm.com/newsletters/fromourreaders/faq.htm#howlongbeeslive for an answer. Also checked out http://experts.about.com/q/Miscellaneous-885/Life-exspectancy.htm. The answer is: Over winter, the worker bees (female honeybees) can live from 4 to 6 months. During the summer they only live 4 to 6 weeks as they literally " wear " themselves out harvesting honey. The queens can live 2-3 years or more, although the bees will consider her old after 2 years & try to replace her. The honeybees start raising drones (the male bees) in spring & since their only purpose is for reproduction, any still alive in the fall get kicked out to perish. So, I guess I don't understand where the information comes from about honey farmers killing bees? - earthmother Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:40 PM Re: Vegan perfection and compromise whenever they make that stupid plant comment i always make the point that plants don't have a central nervous system and therefore do not feel pain. i really hate that argument; it's just plain ignorant. most commercial honey manufacturers actually DO kill all the bees. they gas them, and not to sleep, but to death. sometimes they will save the queen. but bees create honey in cycles. it's impossible to force them to do differently the way they do cows and chickens. so if they wanted to keep the bees alive, and overwinter them, then they'd have to leave some honey for them, and keep them alive, which is more work then they consider it to be worth, when they can just buy a whole new batch of bees. so most of the time, honey comes from dead bees, and also there's plenty of pesticide trapped in the honey itself from the gas they use. so honey is not our friend. i will very, very occasionally buy honey from a local farmer here that i know overwinters his bees. and i will occasionally use burt's bees products (the baby stuff) because i know they overwinter as well. but overall we try to avoid it, just like we avoid products that use beetles as coloring agents, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 Absolutely! This is definitely a continuing journey for most of us. I certainly wasn't wealthy enough to come home and throw everything out and buy all new products. But over time I have replace my belongings and I am a very selective shopper. I buy fairly traded foods. I worry about sweatshop free items. It kills me when I have no choice but to shop at WalMart. However, I do try to find what I need used. Extending its life gives more meaning and respect to the labor that went into it. Then there is the issue of how to help the economy of the country of origin so that sweatshops are not the only choice for those living there. I also have great concerns for what happens in our own backyards. It really saddens me to see what our society allows in regard to poverty and mentally handicapped individuals. Carrol , robin koloms <rkoloms wrote: > > I truly do not mean this to be disrespecful, but do those of you who work so hard for the rights of animal feel as strongly about humans? Do you buy fairly traded coffee, chocolate, etc.? Do you buy clothing that is sweatshop free? > > > Mary Borden <maresydotes63 wrote: > I wanted to know how long a bee's natural life span is and why farmers would kill bees so I went to: http://www.honeyflowfarm.com/newsletters/fromourreaders/faq.htm#howlon gbeeslive for an answer. Also checked out http://experts.about.com/q/Miscellaneous-885/Life-exspectancy.htm. > > The answer is: Over winter, the worker bees (female honeybees) can live from 4 to 6 months. During the summer they only live 4 to 6 weeks as they literally " wear " themselves out harvesting honey. The queens can live 2-3 years or more, although the bees will consider her old after 2 years & try to replace her. The honeybees start raising drones (the male bees) in spring & since their only purpose is for reproduction, any still alive in the fall get kicked out to perish. > > So, I guess I don't understand where the information comes from about honey farmers killing bees? > > - > earthmother > > Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:40 PM > Re: Vegan perfection and compromise > > > > whenever they make that stupid plant comment i always make the point that > plants don't have a central nervous system and therefore do not feel pain. > i really hate that argument; it's just plain ignorant. > > most commercial honey manufacturers actually DO kill all the bees. they gas > them, and not to sleep, but to death. sometimes they will save the queen. > but bees create honey in cycles. it's impossible to force them to do > differently the way they do cows and chickens. so if they wanted to keep > the bees alive, and overwinter them, then they'd have to leave some honey > for them, and keep them alive, which is more work then they consider it to > be worth, when they can just buy a whole new batch of bees. so most of the > time, honey comes from dead bees, and also there's plenty of pesticide > trapped in the honey itself from the gas they use. so honey is not our > friend. i will very, very occasionally buy honey from a local farmer here > that i know overwinters his bees. and i will occasionally use burt's bees > products (the baby stuff) because i know they overwinter as well. but > overall we try to avoid it, just like we avoid products that use beetles as > coloring agents, etc. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 Thank you for your response. I often run into the rat-is-a-pig-is-a-dog-is-a-boy crowd carrying a paper starbucks cup. The hypocricy makes me crazy. We also buy used clothing and fairly traded coffee, for the impact on humans and the planet. earthmother <earthmother213 wrote: robin -- yes! actually, we can't afford to buy sweatshop-free most of the time, so we buy only used clothing...used everything, actually, as much as we can handle. the toys for our son are always wooden and made by small family businesses, never plastic from china, etc. we don't drink coffee or use chocolate (carob instead mostly), so those aren't issues, but i stopped buying dried herbs (growing them myself, or farmers' markets) and i won't buy sugar unless it's fairly traded, etc., and we try to eat only in season and buy locally (which is really hard and sometimes impossible, but we try)...there's only so much some of us can do, but the effort is what counts, i think. correcting injustices to humans, or at least not participating if we can help it, is the first line of defense in making this a more peaceful world. there are a lot of issues with wool. you can go here to see why: http://www.downbound.com/Wool_s/271.htm our main problems are with " collateral damage, " mulesing, and shipment of animals. chandelle' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 18, 2006 Report Share Posted September 18, 2006 well, with the eczema thing, i make sure to make my husband a smoothie everyday with a few teaspoons of a cold-pressed evening primrose/flax oil mix. that keeps his skin nice and hydrated from within. when he has flare-ups (mainly in times of stress or when he's gone swimming or use a harsh soap), i either buy borage leaves and crush them, or just buy a borage extract, and mix it with palm oil, and that soothes his skin and stops the itch-scratch cycle. i'm trying to grow borage myself but i guess it's too hot here. borgae is really wonderful for eczema. when it gets really bad, we use a homeopathic. i don't know if you're into that, but here's a link to different kinds of homeopathics to use for eczema: http://www.publix.com/wellness/notes/Display.do?id=Homeo & childId=Eczema_hm sulphur is most useful for him. we also are very careful about what kinds of soap we use. i usually try to make my own soap but sometimes i just don't have the time, so we buy some oil-based stuff from the farmers' market. just olive, coconut or palm oil with non-drying essential oils. for hair i use a base of castile soap with olive oil (we both tend to have dry hair). i add whatever kinds of herbs or essential oils i like, usually eucalyptus, lavendar, citrus, rose, etc., whatever sounds nice to me at the time! and that's it, very simple. it takes some getting used to since most women's hair tends to be " addicted " to conditioner. but i haven't used conditioner for about a year now and i never have tangles anymore and my hair is just as soft. for our laundry detergent -- for our clothes i use vinegar and baking soda, that's it. sometimes i'll throw in some essential oil like citrus or lavendar or rose for a nice scent. i don't measure or anything, just dump some in...i'd guess about 1/2 a cup of each. for diapers, i do one rinse with vinegar, then a second rinse with baking soda and tea tree oil (to retard bacterial growth). we started doing it this way when my son started getting really bad rashes from detergent build-up. this way his diapers are always nice and clean and free of build-up and stinky smells. he had a yeast infection a few months ago and it was just a mess. so since then i've used my homemade wipes with 1 c. water + 1 tbsp. vinegar and that keeps his diaper area from being susceptible to yeast from his poop. (we had problems with this because we don't have a car, so i'd take him on the bus or train and wouldn't be able to change him fast enough. so sometimes he'd have to sit in yucky diapers and that's how he started getting infections.) hope that helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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