Honey is refused because bees are killed for it, and because, even where the comb was left standing, other small creatures find their way into what drips.
Amṛtacandra puts it in one line: to provide a single drop, bees have to be killed, and if they were driven off by some artifice, or the honey ran down of itself, harm still occurs, since other living things get into it. Somadeva adds that it is pressed from the young in the comb. The proverb the commentators repeat is that one who eats honey takes on the sin of burning seven villages, because the hive is taken by smoking the bees out. It is one of the four vikṛtis and one of the three ma-kāras.