No I am not sure if they are Acacia, but that's what people call them around here. They are large trees with huge clusters of white flowers that bloom in May and smell like Jasmine. They have some nasty thorns on them too.
"tonnes" - yeah, i'm used to British spelling, being from Canada.
as for your vegans - i have heard that vegans don't eat honey. you know, cause it's cruel to let bees do...what they do normally. The "fact" that it takes the bees 48,000 miles (what are those??) of travel seems weird. that number really depends on whether flowers are close by or not. bees aren't dumb, they will travel less if they can. you can see that the bees are tired when no flowers are in bloom close by and they have to travel to the neighbour's and beyond.