Sustainable & Ethical Beekeeping

Honeybees are marvellous creatures. They've been around for millions of years - long before we arrived - and they, along with a range of other insects provide the vital service of pollinating many of the plants around us, including many of the plants that provide us with food. They also provide us with honey - the stored food that is their energy source through winter. Is it ethical to take their honey - even if we only take their surplus? Do we sometimes overlook their role as pollinators - and as animals in their own right?

Should we keep them in artificial hives? Should we allow them to swarm naturally? Should we treat them for pests and diseases? Or feed them? Or do any number of the things that beekeepers do - marking and clipping queens, using smokers, importing queens with special characteristics?

And with our native pollinators in decline are honeybees actually part of the problem? Do they out-compete bumblebees and solitary bees for example?

We look at some of the ethical concerns raised by both beekeepers and non-beekeepers and look at how beekeeping can be practiced in a way that is sustainable for the bees and for our other pollinators.