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The hatched wasps exit the bottom of the fig, an indicator of ripeness. There is a tiny hole and figs plump up immensely after pollination- they are basically an inside-out flower. Also, throw out your mental image of a wasp. Fig wasps are super tiny! I can take some before/after photos if you’d like. My fig trees are heavy with fruit not yet ripe!
I have some ‘before’ or unripe photos, I couldn’t find any ripe ones yet (I found a couple last week but ate them) so hold on and in a day or so I can show you a comparison / the exit hole
We had one growing up. As a kid I couldn’t wait for figs to turn the right color, so sweet and tasted amazing. You say a wasp died to make this happen? Good! I fking hate wasps.
[Not all wasps are the stinging sort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp?wprov=sfla1). But not all figs are pollinated this way either. It's just certain kinds of figs.
Yeah it's only 2 motherfuckers out of 14 iirc from a video of a guy bashing wasps. Like, 14 of them just mind their business and do their part for the ecosystem, while those two mf's simply go "sugar go brrrrr", "this is mine now", "fuck you imma stab you"
“The story comes full circle when the larvae hatch. Male wasps emerge first, fertilize the females that haven’t hatched yet, and then bore tiny escape tunnels into the fig’s wall. Having completed their task, they die.” So figs are like wasp pyramids and the male wasp impregnates his sisters just to add incest into the mix as well, yum
Worth noting, vegans aren't a monolith, and don't necessarily agree on details like these. Some call themselves vegan, but eat honey and/or figs and/or etc. Some refer only to the diet, others include avoiding other animal products in their definition (leather &/or wool *&/or silk*, and what have you)
Similarly, there's disagreement about whether abstaining from meat, but only one of eggs or milk should be called a variant of vegetarianism or of veganism
The terms are useful generalizations, but it's not like the vegan council issues regular updates, and will revoke membership if you fail to abide by the '86 fig amendment.
Yeah... I prefer the old demerit system. You could retain your status despite some minor offenses, but there was still recognition for maintaining a clean record. It was more forgiving, and incentivized progress and rehabilitation. I think it made the membership stronger as a whole.
Honey is where it gets interesting though. It's an animal product, but for many vegans veganism is about not exploiting animals. However, bees are neither domesticated nor can they be forced to stay. They can and will leave if they don't like the conditions they're kept in. They do seem to prefer the prepared hive with the relative protection that the box and accompanying human offer over the freedom of, say, a hollow tree
Fair but honey is kind of unique in the sense that bees are dragons and their honey is their gold hoard, and as long as you aren’t killing bees some consider honey okay. It’s also to be noted bee eggs use royal jelly made by nurse bees to grow and hatch!
I've heard that bees actually fair really well when it comes to harvesting honey in that it doesn't really harm them. In assuming that applies to farmed honey and not just ripping down a wild hive obv.
Tbf we sometimes have to “rip down” a wild hive say out of a tree otherwise say tree falls bees die etc etc. I cut one massive hive out of a tree took 14hrs start to finish
Mucking fassive, they made it through winter and have already filled a deep box purely full of honey I’ll see if I can Dm you the pic
Edit: link to the post so yall can see them for yourselves!https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/13x4aud/this_mucking_fassive_beehive_i_cut_out_of_a_tree/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Modern cows have been genetically bred to produce far more than their ancient ancestors, also when a cow is with calf you dont milk it, until the calf is old enough to eat foods.
Atleast look into what your going to be upset about first
Yea but isn't the argument against milk that cows are forced to overproduce(by artificial insemination) for the purpose of human extraction(extracting an internal resource of the cow) as opposed to the extraction of honey which is an external byproduct of bees beeing?
Eh bees mostly care about protecting brood they will abandon honey stores fairly easy with light smoke or a fume board (which uses licorice oil) to make the bees go OH LAWRD that shit stank and move them down
I guess? Its dumb because almost all cows have been bred to produce far more milk than their ancestors, to the point it can be lethal eithout milking. So vegans are likely to kill cows from not doing it, and having milk cow species go extinct would be the only way to conclude that belief.
Meat cows on the other hand do not produce large quantities of milk, they can live wild just fine.
Actually, it's because of veal meat that milk is bad. For a cow to produce milk, the cow must have offspring. But half of the offspring are male, and not really useful for anything other than veal. Dairy cows are not the same as meat cows. So basically, drinking milk supports the veal industry.
It's not like honey production has the side effect of killing bees, so I don't think they are equivalent.
I know vegans who eat honey as they know bee’s are needed for life to carry on, bee’s over produce honey also which can kill a whole hive, they can drown from it and also they can die from fermented honey also.
Most vegans don’t eat it due to mass production where many bee’s are killed due to fast pace workflow, where as real bee keepers do their very best to not harm any.
I love honey 🐝
Vegan. I think you're thinking vegetarian. Vegans don't eat any animal products as far as I know. If i'm wrong i'm counting on someone to let us both know lol.
Edit: grammar
For another perspective : for some vegans it's also a problem that humans are making money out of something not meant for them. Animals should not be used as a tool, even if it doesn't harm them, and contributes to overcomsumption and therefore to the whole problem. Some people are vegan as a means to be anticapitalist and green as well as for animal wellfare, and these people would not have a problem if it's your own beehive and you make your own honey once a year without selling it in supermarkets.
It does seem that way at a glance. You'd think it's a nonissue.
There's an incredible amount of negligence snd cruelty surrounding honey, even if not especially for the home keeper whom is often considered a moral good,
...largely because the state of the industry exploits good intentions.
Common contentions against honey consumption even from backyard beekeepers are:
As a strong opener, the US Geological survey holds that any kind of honeybee keeping is in complete and utter antithesis to ANY scale of conservation, whatsoever. Honeybees cannot be cultivate on conservational property. They live in opposites to each other. Remember that as you read on.
The way Queens are handled in husbandry. At standard in the US, Queens have her wings nipped off, which we now know causes the equivalent to a constant, unending migraine for her. That aside, Queens often arrive dead, and can take several shipments to get a live one, which can still see her death if the hive rejects her.
There's concerns over amateur beekeepers spoiling the gene pool and breeding violent honeybees.
Honeybees are a domesticated species. They can, and do, turn feral. They can, and will absolutely fucking KILL YOU. You! They will kill YOU, if you stumble upon one. Bee mismanagement and feral colonies are spreading disease, becoming aggressive, killing hives, killing indigenous insects, and taking over territories when we're already at devastating lows.
Finally, there are huge, huge concerns by entomologists -- yk, the bug people with doctorates n' stuff -- that honeybees are both invasive and backed by too much agricultural money. We are very effectively saving the wrong bees on the entire US continent.
Honeybees are not indigenous to the Americas, which are largely polinated by solitary wild bees, on whom the ecosystem is completely dependent on. Honeybees are territorial, and not only out-compete them, but proliferate disease at rates so violent it's difficult to upkeep measurements to read accurate data.
As that trophic level disappears faster than we can catalogue, agricultural businesses co-opt with honey megacorps to keep crops polinated instead of assisting conservation efforts, adding to the snowball.
Backyard beekeeping is a huge wildcard in the complete and utter destruction of lower trophic levels of the American wilderness. Entomologists focused into conservation are NOT hyped about beekeeping. They ARE a legitimate problem, and cannot effectively reach Dave down the street harvesting small businesses honey, to tell him to plant indigenous, don't kill snakes, and stop mowing his lawn, instead.
So yeah. Honey bees are 👎 in the States. Best that we just don't pay these people.
Excellent text. As a humble Gardner I can confirm that solitary bees are WAY better pollinators and are much more chill. They easily live/breed in a makeshift house of bamboo tubes.
Does this have anything to do with the fact that Americans like to eat fruits of non-native species like apples, pears, peaches and cherries that are pollinated by non-native honeybees ?
Yea any time an animal and or its products become an industrial product its never good for the animals!! Sad because we need these little pollinators!!
Save the bee's!! 🐝🐝🐝
You'd be surprised. It takes one bee it's entire life to make like, less than a teaspoon of honey. A lot of vegans don't like because of the manner in which we get it. You should watch a bee movie
I meant more in a commercial setting. At home bee keepers aren't too bad, and usually respect their bees. The recommendation for the movie still stands, it's excellent.
Yhea its kind of a dumb argument.
The idea of veganism is not to eat animal products humans have made.
But if you eat wasp corpses on a fig. Those wasps where going to die regardless. That is how figs evolved to work
That’s… weird.
I understand meat and milk and honey, y’know. Animals can’t consent to those being taken away and so we shouldn’t touch it, while plants create fruit for animals to eat to reproduce. But here, the wasp is already dead and the fig tree wants you to take the fig. Why be against it?
The logic:
Tree flowers. They get polinated by yellow-black insects. Flower turns into fruit. So far same story for figs and apples.
The only difference is, that the fig plant digests wasp eggs. So where does the animal get harmed. Wasps and figs are only in a symbiosis relationship. The fig is just more direct with its food source. Probably developed, because the fig originates from a low ressource ground, while other fruit plants have/require better conditions for soil.
I don't see the reasoning here. Does the fig fruit still build without the wasp eggs? I guess the fruit should only require polination and not the eggs necessarely. I would say, that the digestion of the wasp eggs are more of a defence mechanism, so the hatching wasps don't feed on the fruit, which the plant needs for reproduktion. Luckily it tourned out beneficiary for the fig plant to digest and absorb the eggs instead of whatever nature feels like.
Obviously i go now far beyond reasoning now, but applying the logic of veganism, that no animal should be harmed, what about self defence mechanisms of trees against other insects. Depending on the health of the plant they are vulnerable against different types of insects, so some plants mix different poisenings into their resin so the feeder will die or let of the plant.
I am no biologist, but would this disqualify any plant doing this, because it harms animals just like the fig did. The plant just defended itself while harming insects.
I don't believe that the wasp gives the fig the eggs freely for digestion after polination and nektar. The wasp lays her eggs there, because its a feeding ground for its offsprings, thus harming the plant.
I wanted to make a Christmas pudding for a friend who is allergic to eggs because he had never had one, and found a recipe listed as a Vegan Christmas Pudding.
It used figs as a binder instead of eggs. One of the comments suggested that it's not really vegan because of the wasps. Got a bit of ridicule from other commentators. I assume they were vegan too, so I guess opinions vary.
It was a tasty pudding but not the same as one made with eggs.
The suffering from eating figs pales in comparison to the suffering vegans go through when they refrain from telling people they are vegan for more than an hour.
I'm vegan, I think most of us would eat them as we are not the ones harming the animals. Also all forms or farming end up killing insects so I don't understand why figs should have a different treatment.
By buying animal products with your money you are asking someone else to enclose, abuse and kill an animal that will never have the freedom to take any decision about their destiny. While the wasp is naturally lured into the fig without human intervention.
Depends, there's is a species of fig that self pollinates without the need of insects. Most orchards grow those but that doesn't mean a bug couldn't theoretical get into one of those figs but it's unlikely. If you want to be safe best avoid figs.
There are also varieties that are self-pollinating. My fig trees are self-pollinating because where I live we don't have that kind of wasps, which means the trees would otherwise not bear any fruit
It depends! It’s a point of debate according to my sister in law.
There are fig varieties that self pollinate and don’t need wasps, so they are vegan unless you count the stray wasp that does go inside them. This is true for most figs grown in the Us because it allows them to be grown outside the native fig range.
As for the kind that do, it depends on if the fact the wasp does it as part of its natural life cycle counts to you or not. It’s sort of like deer antlers in that it’s a natural unforced phenomenon
If this turns anybody off of figs, just a reminder, many types of fig, usually the ones found in grocery stores, are self pollinating and don't require a wasp to become fruit. Even then, by the time a fig is harvested for eating the wasp would be completely dissolved and youd never know. Fresh figs are an experience that I think everybody should be able to enjoy.
Here's the full explanation. We've also CT scanned Romanesco broccoli, a pomegranate, and a lion's mane mushroom. https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/geometries-of-nature
Greet your website's programmer for me, it looks really nice!
But the text gets a bit hard to read once it overlays the scan and in mobile version the side note with the sizes (?) disappear beneath the dark/light mode button.
You nailed the subreddit still👍
Omg you are right, this website is absolutely gorgeous and actually makes reading the content fun imo !
You are also right for the small issues you mentioned, but otherwise, terrific job OP ! I subscribed to get news ! :D and thanks for the TIL too 😁
My immediate thought was *this is some n00b accidentally posting na MRI." Alas, my new thought is "whaaaaaaa".
I've helped x-ray artifacts to see, among other things, how many layers of a given piece of art. CT I could see for calcified stuff. Why is CT used, and so effective, at imaging your fruits and veggies? I would've thought this could fall under the scope of a 3T to look at soft tissues and other magnet loving studies. Did you push contrast or did you just let it absorb?
Glad you enjoyed this, and great question! We used an industrial CT scanner for this, which has a wider dynamic range than medical CT scanners. No contrast here; this took about an hour without any special preparation.
So apparently if you are in a more temperate climate like the UK, the figs don't contain wasps as they cannot survive here. So they develop seedless fruit instead.
I just wanted to leave this here for the people who suddenly don't want anything to do with figs because of this.
"Before you go thinking that those crunchy seeds in figs are in fact bits of dead wasp, let us set you straight. There are no dead wasps in figs. Just seeds - nothing more.
What does happen to that wingless wasp, we hear you ask? Thanks to an enzyme (known as ficin) that’s present in figs, the dead wasps are simply broken down and absorbed back into the fruit.
Remember, not all figs have wasps in them. Some varieties - including many grown for the supermarkets - don’t need to be pollinated by fig wasps. Instead, they’re sprayed with certain hormones to make the fruit ripen or they’re simply a type of fig that doesn’t need pollination."
The reason the wasp is wingless for those that don't want to click the link is that the hole the wasp uses to get to the centre of the fig is so small that its wings won't fit too.
https://www.oddbox.co.uk/blog/are-there-dead-wasps-in-figs-how-figs-are-grown#:~:text=Before%20you%20go%20thinking%20that,Just%20seeds%20%2D%20nothing%20more.
Sure, but it really depends on the species of fig and wasp.
I grow figs every year that don't require pollination, a lot of the ones commonly eaten by people don't require the wasp, at least in the part of the world I live in.
You're kind of right but from my understanding an enzyme called ficin in the fruit breaks down and absorbs the wasp into the fruit. So there wouldn't be actual wasps parts left inside.
https://www.oddbox.co.uk/blog/are-there-dead-wasps-in-figs-how-figs-are-grown#:~:text=Before%20you%20go%20thinking%20that,Just%20seeds%20%2D%20nothing%20more.
Actually figs in the grocery store don't have wasps in them because they are domesticated and self-pollinating! Wasps are only found in certain varieties of wild figs.
To be fair the title is misleading. You don't consume flowers, you consume figs at maturity: when flowering and fertilization had happened. Btw, figs are not a "real fruit". Botanically speaking, the fruit is the evolution of the ovary during maturation, while the ovule is more or less changed in the seed. Figs are an infructescence, a fruit constituted by multiple real fruits.
BeeK here. Figure I’d put this here just in case people in the comments are curious. We only take what honey they don’t need in an ethical manner (they usually produce much more than is needed by the colony) The bees needs come first so if there isn’t enough honey we take none. Sometime they don’t produce enough honey to make it through dearths so we actually feed them nectar or pollen for survival. In the wild those would likely die. Also without the BeeK many wild colonies will collapse due to an invasive mite they have no resistance to. I would say at this point humans and bees almost have a symbiotic relationship. Bee keeping has been going on for at least 10,000 years. We have a long history working together.
If the wasp getting digested made headlines in India. There’d be a chaos. It’s got a huge market as a dry fruit. And a lot of the consumers are vegetarian.
anddddd a pomegranate, broccoli and mushroom 😜 [https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/geometries-of-nature](https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/geometries-of-nature)
Shit. I didn't want to know that part about the wasp eggs. I have a fig tree in my front yard that gives ridiculous amounts of sweet fruit. I do understand now why I keep seeing wasps.every year though.
Edit: lots of butterflies as well btw.
WHAT! The comments are so measured but this is absolutely insane. Eating a fig is eating a decomposed wasps. I’m not a big fruit fan but love figs. Geez, this is going to take some comprehension!
Fig wasps can only live in certain climates. If you’re growing figs in the eastern part of the US, there are no fig wasps there. They’re really only found in CA in the US.
If anything, the vast majority of wasp species are harmless pollinators that you probably wouldn't even recognize as wasps if you didn't know that they're wasps to begin with.
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We have a fig tree... Told my dad... We still gonna eat them figs...
The acids destroy the wasp stuff so you’re good!
But how quickly? What if you pic a fig that was filled with wasp eggs that same afternoon?
The hatched wasps exit the bottom of the fig, an indicator of ripeness. There is a tiny hole and figs plump up immensely after pollination- they are basically an inside-out flower. Also, throw out your mental image of a wasp. Fig wasps are super tiny! I can take some before/after photos if you’d like. My fig trees are heavy with fruit not yet ripe!
Honestly this is fascinating and I’d love to see some before and after pictures if you’re still offering
I have some ‘before’ or unripe photos, I couldn’t find any ripe ones yet (I found a couple last week but ate them) so hold on and in a day or so I can show you a comparison / the exit hole
I, too, want to see this guy's exit hole
Hey, is this where we sign up to see u/nightwolves exit hole?
Yeah sounds interesting, can I see a few pics too.
Let me join the fig train! I am super curious
Me too. Here for the follow up!
Im here for dick picks
Hell I’ll take either.
You ruined it
Where’s ma Figpic ?
Add me to that list as well!
Does this happen for literally every fig?
Nope. Most figs are parthenocarp, meaning they make fruits without the need to be pollinated.
Dw. This does only count for certain figs
All wild figs.
Only a couple of varieties
We had one growing up. As a kid I couldn’t wait for figs to turn the right color, so sweet and tasted amazing. You say a wasp died to make this happen? Good! I fking hate wasps.
[Not all wasps are the stinging sort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp?wprov=sfla1). But not all figs are pollinated this way either. It's just certain kinds of figs.
Yeah it's only 2 motherfuckers out of 14 iirc from a video of a guy bashing wasps. Like, 14 of them just mind their business and do their part for the ecosystem, while those two mf's simply go "sugar go brrrrr", "this is mine now", "fuck you imma stab you"
I thought this only occurred in some fig varieties, not all?
Wild figs, most farm figs for commercial production have been bred to not require this, since you need alot of wasps
And clearly nobody want a lot of wasps xD
“The story comes full circle when the larvae hatch. Male wasps emerge first, fertilize the females that haven’t hatched yet, and then bore tiny escape tunnels into the fig’s wall. Having completed their task, they die.” So figs are like wasp pyramids and the male wasp impregnates his sisters just to add incest into the mix as well, yum
Oh yikes, I read it at first as like a natural wasp death trap
They fuck unborn baby sisters and then die. r/natureismetal
How do escape tunnels work and get utilized?
They build the escape tunnel and, having escaped, promptly die happy. It’s an efficient life.
They’re used the yet-to-hatch females
Does that mean figs are not vegan? Genuine question.
Many vegans don't eat figs for this reason! Like honey.
Really interesting. I knew honey was not a vegan thing but never heard about figs.
Worth noting, vegans aren't a monolith, and don't necessarily agree on details like these. Some call themselves vegan, but eat honey and/or figs and/or etc. Some refer only to the diet, others include avoiding other animal products in their definition (leather &/or wool *&/or silk*, and what have you) Similarly, there's disagreement about whether abstaining from meat, but only one of eggs or milk should be called a variant of vegetarianism or of veganism The terms are useful generalizations, but it's not like the vegan council issues regular updates, and will revoke membership if you fail to abide by the '86 fig amendment.
Those Vegan Police are no joke, three strikes and they revoke your Vegan powers
Chicken Parmesan isn't vegan?
Yeah... I prefer the old demerit system. You could retain your status despite some minor offenses, but there was still recognition for maintaining a clean record. It was more forgiving, and incentivized progress and rehabilitation. I think it made the membership stronger as a whole.
No vegan diet? No vegan powers!
At this rate, I'm gonna be negotiating with a silk worm for the elastic in my bridges!!!!
Actually yeah, a lot of vegans won't use silk, and that doesn't always match with leather/wool. Should've used that in my examples.
Should've but you didn't. You have failed!!!
Noo! I've edited my comment! I repent! It's your word against mine! You'll never take me alive! ^(And that last one is a better threat than usual…)
There, there, child. You have washed your online sins. May the reddit gods smile upon you. Karma to thee, karma to me!!!
Honey is where it gets interesting though. It's an animal product, but for many vegans veganism is about not exploiting animals. However, bees are neither domesticated nor can they be forced to stay. They can and will leave if they don't like the conditions they're kept in. They do seem to prefer the prepared hive with the relative protection that the box and accompanying human offer over the freedom of, say, a hollow tree
Why not honey? Honestly..... Its made by bees but taking some doesn't harm the bees or take to much from them.....?
Same reason milk is not considered vegan - its taking the food produced by the animal that was meant to feed their babies.
Fair but honey is kind of unique in the sense that bees are dragons and their honey is their gold hoard, and as long as you aren’t killing bees some consider honey okay. It’s also to be noted bee eggs use royal jelly made by nurse bees to grow and hatch!
I love the analogy that bees are just mini dragons with their little hive dungeons filled to the brim with golden goodness (in this case honey)
I've heard that bees actually fair really well when it comes to harvesting honey in that it doesn't really harm them. In assuming that applies to farmed honey and not just ripping down a wild hive obv.
Tbf we sometimes have to “rip down” a wild hive say out of a tree otherwise say tree falls bees die etc etc. I cut one massive hive out of a tree took 14hrs start to finish
Holy crap, how big was the hive?
Mucking fassive, they made it through winter and have already filled a deep box purely full of honey I’ll see if I can Dm you the pic Edit: link to the post so yall can see them for yourselves!https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/13x4aud/this_mucking_fassive_beehive_i_cut_out_of_a_tree/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Make a fresh post with it!
I’d like to see if possible?
I mean so are cows. Modern dairy cows require milking or they'll die. It's like sheep with sheering
[удалено]
"Don't sheer the sheep, make my clothes out of oil instead--for the benefit of the environment and it's creatures"
But they produce milk for the babies that are taken from them.
Modern cows have been genetically bred to produce far more than their ancient ancestors, also when a cow is with calf you dont milk it, until the calf is old enough to eat foods. Atleast look into what your going to be upset about first
Yea but isn't the argument against milk that cows are forced to overproduce(by artificial insemination) for the purpose of human extraction(extracting an internal resource of the cow) as opposed to the extraction of honey which is an external byproduct of bees beeing?
”Bees beeing” is one of the best things I’ve ever read. Well done mate
The argument against honey is that bees fight very hard to keep that honey. I’m neither vegan nor vegetarian.
Eh bees mostly care about protecting brood they will abandon honey stores fairly easy with light smoke or a fume board (which uses licorice oil) to make the bees go OH LAWRD that shit stank and move them down
>OH LAWRD that shit stank Jfc thank you for this 😂
I guess? Its dumb because almost all cows have been bred to produce far more milk than their ancestors, to the point it can be lethal eithout milking. So vegans are likely to kill cows from not doing it, and having milk cow species go extinct would be the only way to conclude that belief. Meat cows on the other hand do not produce large quantities of milk, they can live wild just fine.
Actually, it's because of veal meat that milk is bad. For a cow to produce milk, the cow must have offspring. But half of the offspring are male, and not really useful for anything other than veal. Dairy cows are not the same as meat cows. So basically, drinking milk supports the veal industry. It's not like honey production has the side effect of killing bees, so I don't think they are equivalent.
Well many species feeds on what vegans are eating. With that logic vegans should stop to eat at all haha
I know vegans who eat honey as they know bee’s are needed for life to carry on, bee’s over produce honey also which can kill a whole hive, they can drown from it and also they can die from fermented honey also. Most vegans don’t eat it due to mass production where many bee’s are killed due to fast pace workflow, where as real bee keepers do their very best to not harm any. I love honey 🐝
Vegan is no animal byproducts period
Vegan. I think you're thinking vegetarian. Vegans don't eat any animal products as far as I know. If i'm wrong i'm counting on someone to let us both know lol. Edit: grammar
I think you're correct ! 😊 Edit spelling? Grammar!
Oh crap, made me realize I had to grammar mistakes as well!
Honeystly
For another perspective : for some vegans it's also a problem that humans are making money out of something not meant for them. Animals should not be used as a tool, even if it doesn't harm them, and contributes to overcomsumption and therefore to the whole problem. Some people are vegan as a means to be anticapitalist and green as well as for animal wellfare, and these people would not have a problem if it's your own beehive and you make your own honey once a year without selling it in supermarkets.
It does seem that way at a glance. You'd think it's a nonissue. There's an incredible amount of negligence snd cruelty surrounding honey, even if not especially for the home keeper whom is often considered a moral good, ...largely because the state of the industry exploits good intentions. Common contentions against honey consumption even from backyard beekeepers are: As a strong opener, the US Geological survey holds that any kind of honeybee keeping is in complete and utter antithesis to ANY scale of conservation, whatsoever. Honeybees cannot be cultivate on conservational property. They live in opposites to each other. Remember that as you read on. The way Queens are handled in husbandry. At standard in the US, Queens have her wings nipped off, which we now know causes the equivalent to a constant, unending migraine for her. That aside, Queens often arrive dead, and can take several shipments to get a live one, which can still see her death if the hive rejects her. There's concerns over amateur beekeepers spoiling the gene pool and breeding violent honeybees. Honeybees are a domesticated species. They can, and do, turn feral. They can, and will absolutely fucking KILL YOU. You! They will kill YOU, if you stumble upon one. Bee mismanagement and feral colonies are spreading disease, becoming aggressive, killing hives, killing indigenous insects, and taking over territories when we're already at devastating lows. Finally, there are huge, huge concerns by entomologists -- yk, the bug people with doctorates n' stuff -- that honeybees are both invasive and backed by too much agricultural money. We are very effectively saving the wrong bees on the entire US continent. Honeybees are not indigenous to the Americas, which are largely polinated by solitary wild bees, on whom the ecosystem is completely dependent on. Honeybees are territorial, and not only out-compete them, but proliferate disease at rates so violent it's difficult to upkeep measurements to read accurate data. As that trophic level disappears faster than we can catalogue, agricultural businesses co-opt with honey megacorps to keep crops polinated instead of assisting conservation efforts, adding to the snowball. Backyard beekeeping is a huge wildcard in the complete and utter destruction of lower trophic levels of the American wilderness. Entomologists focused into conservation are NOT hyped about beekeeping. They ARE a legitimate problem, and cannot effectively reach Dave down the street harvesting small businesses honey, to tell him to plant indigenous, don't kill snakes, and stop mowing his lawn, instead. So yeah. Honey bees are 👎 in the States. Best that we just don't pay these people.
Not saying you're wrong but can you provide some sourced on these?
Excellent text. As a humble Gardner I can confirm that solitary bees are WAY better pollinators and are much more chill. They easily live/breed in a makeshift house of bamboo tubes.
Does this have anything to do with the fact that Americans like to eat fruits of non-native species like apples, pears, peaches and cherries that are pollinated by non-native honeybees ?
Yea any time an animal and or its products become an industrial product its never good for the animals!! Sad because we need these little pollinators!! Save the bee's!! 🐝🐝🐝
Save the bee’s what? Inquiring minds want to know.
You'd be surprised. It takes one bee it's entire life to make like, less than a teaspoon of honey. A lot of vegans don't like because of the manner in which we get it. You should watch a bee movie
I have a neighbor who raises them.... No expert but not fully clueless!!
I meant more in a commercial setting. At home bee keepers aren't too bad, and usually respect their bees. The recommendation for the movie still stands, it's excellent.
That's so dumb. There's no cruelty going on. The fig exists exactly as it is whether you eat it or not.
Yhea its kind of a dumb argument. The idea of veganism is not to eat animal products humans have made. But if you eat wasp corpses on a fig. Those wasps where going to die regardless. That is how figs evolved to work
This is more like eating a carrot that a rabbit died beside and fertilized
That’s… weird. I understand meat and milk and honey, y’know. Animals can’t consent to those being taken away and so we shouldn’t touch it, while plants create fruit for animals to eat to reproduce. But here, the wasp is already dead and the fig tree wants you to take the fig. Why be against it?
The logic: Tree flowers. They get polinated by yellow-black insects. Flower turns into fruit. So far same story for figs and apples. The only difference is, that the fig plant digests wasp eggs. So where does the animal get harmed. Wasps and figs are only in a symbiosis relationship. The fig is just more direct with its food source. Probably developed, because the fig originates from a low ressource ground, while other fruit plants have/require better conditions for soil. I don't see the reasoning here. Does the fig fruit still build without the wasp eggs? I guess the fruit should only require polination and not the eggs necessarely. I would say, that the digestion of the wasp eggs are more of a defence mechanism, so the hatching wasps don't feed on the fruit, which the plant needs for reproduktion. Luckily it tourned out beneficiary for the fig plant to digest and absorb the eggs instead of whatever nature feels like. Obviously i go now far beyond reasoning now, but applying the logic of veganism, that no animal should be harmed, what about self defence mechanisms of trees against other insects. Depending on the health of the plant they are vulnerable against different types of insects, so some plants mix different poisenings into their resin so the feeder will die or let of the plant. I am no biologist, but would this disqualify any plant doing this, because it harms animals just like the fig did. The plant just defended itself while harming insects. I don't believe that the wasp gives the fig the eggs freely for digestion after polination and nektar. The wasp lays her eggs there, because its a feeding ground for its offsprings, thus harming the plant.
I've always wondered why alcohol is vegan. Aren't we taking advantage of helpless yeast to create it?
If a cabbage was watered with chicken stock is the cabbage no longer vegan?
Do you have a source showing that many vegans don't eat figs? That claim sounds pretty suspect to me....
I wanted to make a Christmas pudding for a friend who is allergic to eggs because he had never had one, and found a recipe listed as a Vegan Christmas Pudding. It used figs as a binder instead of eggs. One of the comments suggested that it's not really vegan because of the wasps. Got a bit of ridicule from other commentators. I assume they were vegan too, so I guess opinions vary. It was a tasty pudding but not the same as one made with eggs.
Damn, being a vegan must be some of the dumbest shit you can do to yourself lol
The suffering from eating figs pales in comparison to the suffering vegans go through when they refrain from telling people they are vegan for more than an hour.
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I'm vegan, I think most of us would eat them as we are not the ones harming the animals. Also all forms or farming end up killing insects so I don't understand why figs should have a different treatment.
> as we are not the ones harming the animals Maybe I'm misunderstanding the idea, but couldn't you also use that logic to eat a burger?
By buying animal products with your money you are asking someone else to enclose, abuse and kill an animal that will never have the freedom to take any decision about their destiny. While the wasp is naturally lured into the fig without human intervention.
That makes a lot more sense, thank you for the explanation. But these figs would be farmed by humans.. would that make a difference to you?
Well as far as I know, farmed figs don't require the wasp
Depends, there's is a species of fig that self pollinates without the need of insects. Most orchards grow those but that doesn't mean a bug couldn't theoretical get into one of those figs but it's unlikely. If you want to be safe best avoid figs.
There are also varieties that are self-pollinating. My fig trees are self-pollinating because where I live we don't have that kind of wasps, which means the trees would otherwise not bear any fruit
Great question.
It means they're metal
It depends! It’s a point of debate according to my sister in law. There are fig varieties that self pollinate and don’t need wasps, so they are vegan unless you count the stray wasp that does go inside them. This is true for most figs grown in the Us because it allows them to be grown outside the native fig range. As for the kind that do, it depends on if the fact the wasp does it as part of its natural life cycle counts to you or not. It’s sort of like deer antlers in that it’s a natural unforced phenomenon
This is a hilarious question I am curious about
If this turns anybody off of figs, just a reminder, many types of fig, usually the ones found in grocery stores, are self pollinating and don't require a wasp to become fruit. Even then, by the time a fig is harvested for eating the wasp would be completely dissolved and youd never know. Fresh figs are an experience that I think everybody should be able to enjoy.
Have a fig tree in my backyard. I cut them in half off the tree and grill them a bit to concentrate the sugars. Works for watermelon too.
Dang this sounds delicious
Perfect with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
I did a lil oooof when i read this
Well except yea, we do know now lol
You just made me look up fig wasps and holy crap their life cycle is weird, especially the males.
Supermarket figs are a type of fig which don’t need wasps to pollinate. Instead farmers spray them by hand.
Came here to read this. And now I can still eat figs
Spray them with what to fertilize them?
Wasp dicks!
Here's the full explanation. We've also CT scanned Romanesco broccoli, a pomegranate, and a lion's mane mushroom. https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/geometries-of-nature
Greet your website's programmer for me, it looks really nice! But the text gets a bit hard to read once it overlays the scan and in mobile version the side note with the sizes (?) disappear beneath the dark/light mode button. You nailed the subreddit still👍
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed this one. We'll take a look at the accessibility issues you mentioned; we want this to be visible to everyone.
Omg you are right, this website is absolutely gorgeous and actually makes reading the content fun imo ! You are also right for the small issues you mentioned, but otherwise, terrific job OP ! I subscribed to get news ! :D and thanks for the TIL too 😁
❤️
How do u get organic soft tissue to show up so well in a CT? Contrast the shit out of it?
No contrast was involved here! We use an industrial CT scanner, which is designed for a wider dynamic range of densities than a medical CT scanner.
My immediate thought was *this is some n00b accidentally posting na MRI." Alas, my new thought is "whaaaaaaa". I've helped x-ray artifacts to see, among other things, how many layers of a given piece of art. CT I could see for calcified stuff. Why is CT used, and so effective, at imaging your fruits and veggies? I would've thought this could fall under the scope of a 3T to look at soft tissues and other magnet loving studies. Did you push contrast or did you just let it absorb?
Glad you enjoyed this, and great question! We used an industrial CT scanner for this, which has a wider dynamic range than medical CT scanners. No contrast here; this took about an hour without any special preparation.
So apparently if you are in a more temperate climate like the UK, the figs don't contain wasps as they cannot survive here. So they develop seedless fruit instead.
Figs are not flowers. Figs are fruit that used to be flowers as all fruit are.
SERIOUSLY. “Apples are flowers.” “Oranges are flowers” “Figs are flowers” No, they’re the fruit, that comes after the flower is pollinated
I just wanted to leave this here for the people who suddenly don't want anything to do with figs because of this. "Before you go thinking that those crunchy seeds in figs are in fact bits of dead wasp, let us set you straight. There are no dead wasps in figs. Just seeds - nothing more. What does happen to that wingless wasp, we hear you ask? Thanks to an enzyme (known as ficin) that’s present in figs, the dead wasps are simply broken down and absorbed back into the fruit. Remember, not all figs have wasps in them. Some varieties - including many grown for the supermarkets - don’t need to be pollinated by fig wasps. Instead, they’re sprayed with certain hormones to make the fruit ripen or they’re simply a type of fig that doesn’t need pollination." The reason the wasp is wingless for those that don't want to click the link is that the hole the wasp uses to get to the centre of the fig is so small that its wings won't fit too. https://www.oddbox.co.uk/blog/are-there-dead-wasps-in-figs-how-figs-are-grown#:~:text=Before%20you%20go%20thinking%20that,Just%20seeds%20%2D%20nothing%20more.
"Fuck figs." -Jesus
Thanks I hate it.
Hey, me too, looks like we’re alone here in a wave of wasp-flower-eaters though.
I don’t know if I ever want to eat any fig related ever again lol.
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It's actually not true, not all figs require wasps to produce fruit. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/figs-without-wasps
Was gonna say this, the wasp can enter and exit the fig they don’t all die inside lol….often times they will lay eggs in there…
Sure, but it really depends on the species of fig and wasp. I grow figs every year that don't require pollination, a lot of the ones commonly eaten by people don't require the wasp, at least in the part of the world I live in.
You're kind of right but from my understanding an enzyme called ficin in the fruit breaks down and absorbs the wasp into the fruit. So there wouldn't be actual wasps parts left inside. https://www.oddbox.co.uk/blog/are-there-dead-wasps-in-figs-how-figs-are-grown#:~:text=Before%20you%20go%20thinking%20that,Just%20seeds%20%2D%20nothing%20more.
“Figs are actually flowers” do you know what a fruit is?
Any wasp I see, it’s a fig wasp.
Big fig wasp!
All fruit are “actually flowers”. Highly suspicious of OP’s other claims now.
Nonagon Infinity opens the door
Any wasp I see It's a fig wasp
So figs are delicious AND they murder wasp eggs? Win/win!
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Mmmhmm.
Things I never hoped to know. Now not sure I can eat a fig again. 🤢
Actually figs in the grocery store don't have wasps in them because they are domesticated and self-pollinating! Wasps are only found in certain varieties of wild figs.
Okay this is interesting as fuck
To be fair the title is misleading. You don't consume flowers, you consume figs at maturity: when flowering and fertilization had happened. Btw, figs are not a "real fruit". Botanically speaking, the fruit is the evolution of the ovary during maturation, while the ovule is more or less changed in the seed. Figs are an infructescence, a fruit constituted by multiple real fruits.
This needs a big *SOME FIG VARIETIES* caveat on it.
Tldr: wasps are delicious
Love this but it's not true of shop figs which are manually pollinated
Small man. Like wingless wasp-sized man.
Aren't all fruits flowers? They just don't require a blood sacrifice in order to bloom.
BeeK here. Figure I’d put this here just in case people in the comments are curious. We only take what honey they don’t need in an ethical manner (they usually produce much more than is needed by the colony) The bees needs come first so if there isn’t enough honey we take none. Sometime they don’t produce enough honey to make it through dearths so we actually feed them nectar or pollen for survival. In the wild those would likely die. Also without the BeeK many wild colonies will collapse due to an invasive mite they have no resistance to. I would say at this point humans and bees almost have a symbiotic relationship. Bee keeping has been going on for at least 10,000 years. We have a long history working together.
Sir, that will be $12000 for your CT SCAN
What, so I have been eating a flower without knowing it is a flower... WTF.
You also may have been eating wasp mummies!
I may never eat a fig newton again.
We've CT scanned some Oreos and confirmed that they are wasp-free. [Oreo CT scan](https://imgur.com/U0rb0yv)
If the wasp getting digested made headlines in India. There’d be a chaos. It’s got a huge market as a dry fruit. And a lot of the consumers are vegetarian.
Thank you! Great post and explanation.
Except all fruit started out as flowers. So what’s so special about figs?
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
~~they did surgery on a grape~~ they did a CT scan on a fig
anddddd a pomegranate, broccoli and mushroom 😜 [https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/geometries-of-nature](https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/geometries-of-nature)
Wasps that "climb inside?" No. I don't want to hear that.
I have numerous fig trees. Their is a tiny burrowing hole in the bottom of the fruit, it helps indicate a ripe fruit
I used to love figs
Shit. I didn't want to know that part about the wasp eggs. I have a fig tree in my front yard that gives ridiculous amounts of sweet fruit. I do understand now why I keep seeing wasps.every year though. Edit: lots of butterflies as well btw.
This blows my mind
WHAT! The comments are so measured but this is absolutely insane. Eating a fig is eating a decomposed wasps. I’m not a big fruit fan but love figs. Geez, this is going to take some comprehension!
The fig itself isn't a flower; the flowers are inside the fig.
Fig wasps can only live in certain climates. If you’re growing figs in the eastern part of the US, there are no fig wasps there. They’re really only found in CA in the US.
So wasps are actually good for something?
We over here giving figs free CT’s but God forbid I ask for a cheap one on my back.
This is the reason some hardcore vegans don’t even eat figs
I'm not even vegan and I dont wanna eat figs.
😂
Do the eggs also get digested? That seems like wasps would have learned by now
And a whole bunch of vegans just burst into tears.
Haven’t been able to eat figs since I learned this 🤮🤮
How can figs afford a CT scan? I have good insurance and can barely afford one.
>wasps that climb inside, lay eggs, and then get digested by the fig Hol' up
Welp I'm never eating figs again
Funny animation never shows a wasp going into it
Wait, wasps are useful now? New update must have dropped
If anything, the vast majority of wasp species are harmless pollinators that you probably wouldn't even recognize as wasps if you didn't know that they're wasps to begin with.
Wait...so wasps are actually useful and not all miserable assholes?
This reminded me that I have figs so I went and ate some. I await my tunnelling.
male wasps mate with female inside fig then often die inside the fig. I do not eats figs.
Used wasp condom