Is possible to be cruel to Honey Bees

[mbc]

excusable cruelty ?

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

I haven't made my mind up for various reasons but the statement above I find odd.

If setting fire to a hive is cruel it is cruel under ALL circumstances.

excusable cruelty ?

Yes, really. In the same way that acid burning varroa can be described as cruel - there are some circumstances we can justify it to ourselves. Furthermore I'm a meat eater and realise there lies a bit of a conflict with my desire to treat animals with respect.

 

[Erichalfbee]

in the larger scheme of things, bees (and all other animals) are there to serve us


Ben P

Very Biblical, Ben. You'll be telling us next that animals have no souls.

My cat might disagree

 

[drstitson]

sticking something in a box and nicking it's food is cruel.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

excusable cruelty ?

Yes, self defence for example.
I would argue that intent is an important part of cruelty. For example, if I push an old lady over for fun it is cruel. If I push her over to stop her being run over by a car it is not cruel.
The act itself is not ALWAYS cruel

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

sticking something in a box and nicking it's food is cruel.

But is providing a home from which the something can come and go, and replacing its food, occasionally with supplements, cruel?

Your cats are stuck in a box/house but they can get out. When possible I imagine you prefer they feed weezkass (or similar) to birds. Cruel?

 

[Storm™]

Sorry, but I have to say no... One could argue that the very act of keeping bees in a hive and taking their honey is being "cruel" to them - but, at the end of the day, they are just insects and we keep them because they interest and benefit us - not because we are doing them an act of kindness.

I am not saying that we should not care for our bees, but, in the larger scheme of things, bees (and all other animals) are there to serve us - not the other way round. This is why these days I'm not interested in the whole anti-commercial argument; our population needs the food that those bees pollinate.

I don't like hearing about truck accidents that result in the deaths of thousands of bees, but to me, it is more important whether the driver got out alive or not.


Ben P

PS Not a great poll in my opinion.

In my opinion - you've changed....... what an awful statement...... chilling even. Our future in your hands .... whooop whoooop, I am ashamed on your behalf.

Of course you can be cruel - "define cruel" (rubbish)... we all know what cruel is so no need to define it to anyone with a brain. Thats just rubbish we try and put in the way to get what we want. To justify it.

If you interfere with an animal (no jokes), then you are preventing its free will. By that interpretation the mere act of beekeeping is cruel.

I could not however willingly cause an animal suffering and not care. If you don't care, I feel that satisfies some form of cruelty at least. To do your best to be guardians or custodians of the animals welfare you take on is at the very least your moral duty. I base that on the hope that we are an enlightened society/race. Apparently I'm misguided ...... the arrogance of man and all that.

Edit - and IMHO an interesting and thought provoking poll. And I have learnt something about myself from it - I can still be shocked!

 

[The Cumbrian]

Furthermore I'm a meat eater and realise there lies a bit of a conflict with my desire to treat animals with respect.

I too am a meat eater but don't find a problem with treating animals with respect and eating them.

For me it comes down to the quality of life and the manner of death. Hence my statement that if burning a hive is cruel then it is always cruel.

If I choose to get my Lamb chops by chasing the sheep for a couple of miles and then beating it to death with a brick I am being cruel. However if I take the animal to slaughter with as little stress as possible and it dies an instant death I am not being cruel.

Which brings me back to bees. If burning a hive is cruel then burning because of AFB is cruel particularly as there are probably more humane methods available.

 

[beeatshellards]

If a bee stings me and looses its abdomen is it cruel to put your foot on it deliberately to kill it, or should one just leave it to die naturally, a moral dilema as I dont like to kill anything if I can help it,

 

[The Cumbrian]

If a bee stings me and looses its abdomen is it cruel to put your foot on it deliberately to kill it, or should one just leave it to die naturally, a moral dilema as I dont like to kill anything if I can help it,

For me no moral dilemma you are reducing its suffering. If you took that attitude to higher animals then say a dog run over and too badly injured to survive would just have to lie there and suffer.

Before anyone asks I am still not sure about "assisted suicide".

 

[Vergilius]

In my opinion - you've changed....... what an awful statement...... chilling even. Our future in your hands .... whooop whoooop, I am ashamed on your behalf.

Of course you can be cruel - "define cruel" (rubbish)... we all know what cruel is so no need to define it to anyone with a brain. Thats just rubbish we try and put in the way to get what we want. To justify it.

If you interfere with an animal (no jokes), then you are preventing its free will. By that interpretation the mere act of beekeeping is cruel.

I could not however willingly cause an animal suffering and not care. If you don't care, I feel that satisfies some form of cruelty at least. To do your best to be guardians or custodians of the animals welfare you take on is at the very least your moral duty. I base that on the hope that we are an enlightened society/race. Apparently I'm misguided ...... the arrogance of man and all that.

Edit - and IMHO an interesting and thought provoking poll. And I have learnt something about myself from it - I can still be shocked!

My statement was generalised - of course I think we should care for our animals!!! I was commenting on how animals should be used to benefit us - we should have no qualms about eating meat for example...

Back to the thread topic, perhaps I was wrong with my initial vote. Having said that, I did not think that people would be naive enough to think that I wouldn't care if people abused donkeys, bulldozered hives, abused pets etc... Funnily enough, it may surprise you to know that I am anti-fox hunting, anti-whales in captivity etc - so I do care. All I was saying is that I think that, in most circumstances, human life is first, animals second...

And no, I cannot define what cruelty to a honeybee is...

Ben P

 

[For want of a better word]

YOU HAVE TO BE CRUEL TO BE KIND



.................. as the zealous beekieist said as he ripped off the crown board to a hive on a freezing winters day and smothered the defenseless clustering bees with ACID !!!!



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[Vergilius]

Very Biblical, Ben. You'll be telling us next that animals have no souls.

My cat might disagree

So would mine, but I don't go giving funerals for my bees!!!

 

[jakethedog]

And no, I cannot define what cruelty to a honeybee is...

trapping it in a glass jar in full sunlight would fit the bill as would pinning the wing of a live bee to a board.

giving it a dry home and food is an odd sort of cruelty which a lot of 'higher' creatures would welcome.

 

[Skyhook]

I don't know if it's possible. I've looked at various definitions, and 'willful infliction of physical pain or suffering upon a person or animal' seems as good as any.

The question is- are bees sentient? If their operations are purely mechanistic and they have no perception of what is happening to them, or of their own existence, then no it isn't possible. I'm inclined to think, due to the fact that they have a brain, and respond to stimuli in ways analogous to ours- eg a will to stay alive- that they are likely to have some degree of sentience, however slight- and that therefore while harming them is not the same as harming something fully sentient eg a dog, it should not be taken lightly.

I have to say I was quite shocked the other day at Bcrazy's post that he had dissected some returning workers 'because I was bored'

 

[greatbritishhoney]

, perhaps I was wrong with my initial vote.
Ben P

I don't think you were wrong Ben - anything in the realm of ethics relies on finding a concensus between differing opinions. This concensus changes over time, what we call 'cruel' today would not necessarily have been the case 200 years ago and may not be the case in the future. It also changes from culture to culture.
Great thinkers have been wrangling with this problem for over 2500 years, so I would say there are no right and wrong answers - just opinions. The main thing to be wary of is anyone who tells you they know for sure where the boundary lies. In the words of Bertrand Russell...
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts".

 

[Skyhook]

I am not saying that we should not care for our bees, but, in the larger scheme of things, bees (and all other animals) are there to serve us - not the other way round.

I wondered if that would come up. 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth'

People believed many things in the iron age that we don't now- such as that man was created on the 7th day. We now know that he evolved as one among many species of mammal.

We also therefore know that there was no moment when we were given dominion, we just took it because we could, then justified it retrospectively.

We also now know as a result of behavioural studies, that there is no gulf between us and 'the animals' (ie the other animals); just an unbroken scale of degrees of understanding from zero at one end to us at the other, with several species (eg elephants, orang utangs) very close behind us.

Other species are not here for our benefit. Every species is driven by its own survival, on both an individual and a species level. We will of course exploit other species, but we should not pretend that our right to do so is any greater than that of any other species.

I generally try to keep off religion- but this is one of the bits that is used to justify some awful behaviours, and we have to be ready for when the tea party takes power!

 

[Skyhook]

In the words of Bertrand Russell...
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts".

He sounds fairly sure of that.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

He sounds fairly sure of that.

 

[rae]

Very Biblical, Ben. You'll be telling us next that animals have no souls.

The real question is are living things sentient, can they process pain or injury at anything more than a chemical level? As soon as you start talking about souls, you are in Flying Spaghetti Monster/Big Man in the Sky territory which involves a whole new level of claptrap.

If you rip a human's arm off, not only will the human know that you are bad news, it will feel obvious pain and it will also be concerned about its one armed future.

If you rip a dog's leg off, it will know you are bad news and feel pain. I don't believe it thinks along the lines of "that hot collie down the road won't fancy me anymore".

If you rip a mouse's leg off, it clearly feels pain, but I don't think it learns from the experience.

As regards inspects, I don't know if they feel pain. You see loads of 5 legged spiders getting along just fine.

You also have to remember that cruelty is a construct of a sentient being. A bear will kill thousands of bees when it is pillaging a hive, but all the bear is doing is finding a meal. Deliberately pulling the wings off a bee is "cruel" in that it is wanton and pointless - but it does less damage to the bee or the hive than a non-cruel bear attack.