I am not vegan, but simply trying to understand how honey is bad, but as you say “unavoidable collateral damage of agriculture” or not.
There are many ways agriculture could be less harm, less pesticides, less monotone growing practices, more spread out growing. We do not have to accept these practices to not starve.
I don’t think honey collecting is worse than agriculture (even of direct plants for human consumption), so I don’t think vegans should discount honey.
I agree with your arguments. We’re on the same side of all of this.
I disagree on having to remove one if both are bad. It would be like the trolley problem. 10 people suffer repeatedly indefinitely vs infinitely many suffering eventually. Moving all use to sugar cane will be worse for the environment than spreading some honey and some sugar cane. See my previous monocultulturalism point.
Personally I think honey vs sugar cane is equal, so for me the choice is bad either way. I don’t know which is worse, I try to use less, but what I use I feel is ambivalent, so I use both.