Is honey vegan? No.

This is a tough question. Even some vegans debate this amongst themselves. But, in the end, honey is an animal product and vegans believe that animals are not here for our use. We don't need their products to live and therefore we just don't use them. This includes honey.

Here is a link to a great article about whether honey is vegan or not. All quotes below are from this article.

According to the article above, most honey doesn't come from the backyard honeybee farmer that we all picture in our heads, but rather it comes from honeybee factory farms. Bees are killed. A lot of people think that bees are not killed by the process of humans collecting bee honey. Bees are often killed by being stepped on by the beekeeper or crushed by the frames while the beekeeper is taking the honey. Beekeepers control the hives and keep them from swarming so that they can't just leave if they are unhappy.

The hive dynamics are regulated by the beekeeper, not the bees themselves.

"A successor queen is selected by a human instead of the reigning queen--both of whom may have been "artificially inseminated." "Queens can live for as long as five years but most commercial beekeepers replace them every two years" (Shimanuki & Sheppard, 181) (and often yearly). Yes, "replace" is a euphemism for killing the old queen. Backyard beekeepers also regularly kill their queens. This is done for numerous reasons that all boil down to exerting control over the hive."

Queen Bees often die in transit:
"Queens come from commercial queen suppliers. The image is hundreds of queens with a few nursing bees in individual cages waiting to be flown around the country (Beekeeping). Travel can be rough on the queens; according to Eric Mussen, a UC Davis Extension Apiculturist, "Once at the post office or shipping depot, nearly anything can happen. Queens can be over heated, chilled, left out in the sun for hours (desiccated), banged around in baggage compartments, and exposed to insecticides. Often, the post office or shipping hub fails to contact the customer when the queens arrive and they may sit in storage for days. It is surprising that the queens come through as well as they do" (Mussen). Finally, colonies (hives) are routinely split in half according to what the keeper wants, not the queen."

So basically, when in doubt, leave it out.

Substitutes:
Agave Nectar (easily found at Whole Foods or on the web)
Suzanne’s Specialities’ Just Like Honey Rice Nectar
Maple Syrup

Here are some other good articles to read on the subject:
http://www.friendsofanimals.org/actionline/fall-2004/is-honey-vegan.html
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/animals/exploitation/bees.php