I buy my honey from local beekeepers, precisely because I want to make sure I'm getting actual honey, not honey-flavored corn syrup.

Same here. Also, because the honey purveyors at the farmer's market are awesomely snarky, and they carry honey straws. Which are fantastic.

So I got about 10.5 hours of sleep in total.

Oh, I really hate you right now. I'm in the dead zone between sleep prescriptions which my doctor damned well exists but somehow we fail to address the OBVIOUS IMPLICATIONS of intermittently taking an extra half dose.

I've seen some horrible sheep-shearing videos--a lot of cruelty can go into your wool when they just cut and disregard flesh wounds.

I'm allergic to wool so it's a non-issue for me, but I think if I were buying it to work with I might try sourcing ethically.

It boggles me how silk can even come up in same conversation, but I'm pretty pro-mammal anti-bug even though I eat and wear the former with abandon. I mostly have "we need them" feels about bees, not actual empathy for the organism.

We actually have a friend with 3 hives of angry hybridized bees in his backyard, and whenever possible I get my honey from him. So I feel SUPER responsible, having actually checked out the hives (from a distance, because oh my god those bees are angry) and his honey-harvesting setup.

Why are they angry, Tep?

It's taken me 2 hrs of "jeez, that's a low, loud plane" goldfish "jeez, that's a low, loud plane" goldfish to DUH. Blue Angels' practice for this weekend's airshow. Which I was fully aware of.

Why are they angry, Tep?

Because they've cross-bred with the Africanized bees, which are not-totally-unjustly labelled the "killer bees." When our friend first got his bees (literally in the mail; the post office called and said "You have a box here for pickup...it's full of bees."), they were from some bee guy (a bee farm? a bee breeder?) who can somehow guarantee their provenance. Apparently they were Italian, or maybe Russian. Seriously.

Anyway, the Africanized bees have penetrated this area pretty thoroughly, and there's no way to keep your fancy Italian bee colony from cross-breeding. So after the first year, his bees had cross-bred with the Africanized ones.

The example he gave was that, the first year (pre-Africanized cross-breeding), he could mow the lawn near the hive and they wouldn't give a shit; they'd just kind of hang out on their front porch and watch him mow. And when he checked on the hive/honey production, he would put on his bee hat and gloves, but not a full bee-suit, because they pretty much didn't care if he took the top off the hive box and checked things out.

Now (after 2 or 3 years), he doesn't mow near the hives, and when he goes to check out the hives he wears his full bee suit and duct tapes around his wrists and ankles so bees don't get in, because when he goes near the hives, they come after him, like some kind of horror movie.

They're just angry little bees with issues, man.

As I understand, it's very poor practice to hurt the sheep in shearing, because that affects productivity. I can understand objecting to harm that's considered standard practice (though I have a less-than-enlightened acceptance of the requirements of industrialized farming).

That is terrifying.

Eh, businesses with poor/unethical practices can see short-term gains that justify cutting corners despite the long-term consequences. I don't have a lot of faith in the market correcting this stuff on its own.

That is terrifying.

The bees, or the sheep?

Or the beesheep hybrids?????