That totally hit the V-Spot

Mmmm Luci and I just went to check out a vegan restaurant in Park Slope and it was oh so yummy! She had the empanadas and the platanos, and I had a pesto portabello panini with sweet potato fries. The food was sooooooo good that we each ordered things to take home and ended the meal with some mint chocolate chip rice cream. Great food, nice but slow service. There was a bookshelf offering books about being vegan and I checked out one on vegan restaurants in NYC, found a few spots around Brooklyn (including one vegan trinidadian restaurant on Flatbush and Empire thats open 24 hrs)and the book sparked a discussion on whether or not honey is vegan. According to the book, honey is not considered vegan seeing as how it comes from a living creature. I say that I can't imagine that bees are tortured and forced to produce honey, what must there environment be? A greenhouse? Honey is something they create naturally and it would be impossible to FORCE a bee to make honey, I would think that it's just that their hives are in a controlled area. And I have a hard time considering a bee to be an animal, I'm not really feeling sympathetic to the plight of the honeybee, although I do see the technicality. I'm gonna have to do some research but I'm wondering what other people think, on an intellectual level, not "thats stupid, they're bees" . . .