Is possible to be cruel to Honey Bees

[The Cumbrian]

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

So you are suggesting that if a mouse has a narrow escape with a cat it doesn't learn that they are bad news?

Surely if it learns that it would learn from having a leg ripped off.

 

[xgeordie]

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 don't know much about mice do you - they are actually quite smart.

All animals feel pain - it is a requirement for successful survival.

 

[Skyhook]

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

To add my 2d-worth on this one- if bees can learn from the experience of visiting a good forage site, and goldfish can learn where in the pond they are fed, and at what time of day, why on earth would the more-evolved mice not learn from such a traumatic experience?

 

[rae]

So you are suggesting that if a mouse has a narrow escape with a cat it doesn't learn that they are bad news?

Mice are hardwired to be scared of cats. It not a learnt behaviour - if it were learnt, then all mice would die as they said "hello" to the nearest cat. I would imagine that their instinct would be to fear anything with binocular vision (= a predator) and things that are bigger than them. A mouse does not need to have a run in with a cat to be scared of it.

they are actually quite smart.

Not as smart as (say) dogs. And that is my point - there are degrees of sentience.

 

[The Cumbrian]

I am still not quite following you. As I asked above are you suggesting the mouse wouldn't learn from having a leg ripped off?

 

[newportbuzz]

Got to say this is a interesting poll. i am of an opinion that it is def possible to be cruel to almost any living being be it a person and elephant or a bacteria.

However my internal definition of cruelty is causing undue stress/damage/pain to anything alive.
There would be a slight proviso if the one damaging is enjoying it.
It has very little to do with the senses of the being that is enduring the cruelty for me.

on a side not i beleive that the senses of honeybees are quite limited. so you may find yourself hard pushed to cause one pain. but since they cant make themselfes understood its a fuzzy area for me.

to respond o the animals are put on the earth for us thing.

they wernt but we took over and now they are.
we won the arms race that is evolution and the prize is dominance over lower beings. till ecoli kills us anyway.

 

[Erichalfbee]

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.

It was said firmly tongue-in-cheek as evinced by the following sentence regarding my cat's possible opinion.
I am truly incredulous that a young man of such tender years could think that we have a right to have dominion over other species. Do they teach that in school these days?

 

[rae]

As I asked above are you suggesting the mouse wouldn't learn from having a leg ripped off?

It wouldn't learn very quickly. Imagine a room with a red mark on the floor. If the subject treads on the red mark, a bell goes off and one of its legs is removed forcibly. Say I have invented a forcefield to do the leg removal, rather than using something the objects are already scared of.

A human being would work it out instantly, and the human would also be able to work it out from watching someone else have it done to them. A dog might get it. Our dog only needed one bite from the neighbour's terrier to work out that the terrier was a git and to be avoided. I don't think a dog would be able to work it out by watching it happen to another dog. Mouse - would work it out after many iterations. You can teach mice things, but you need to do it many, many times. A bee? It wouldn't work it out at all. Wasps (which are pretty similar to bees) will watch all their mates drowning in a trap - and then pile in themselves, as they are entirely driven by instinctive behaviour.

The more sentient the creature, the easier it is to cause distress to it. You can drive a human to suicide without laying a finger on them. You can certainly have a psychological influence on a dog - that is what training is all about, but it takes some time. A dog learns about physical interactions very quickly. A mouse takes quite a while to work out physical interactions. I don't think a bee or a wasp can work it out at all.

Can you cause distress to a bee? Yes - witness the bees that pour out of a hive when the roof comes off. However, that is an instinctive reaction, not a sentient one. If bees were sentient, then they'd all be out of the hive as you suited up 100 yards away.

 

[Hivemaker.]

However my internal definition of cruelty is causing undue stress/damage/pain to anything alive.
There would be a slight proviso if the one damaging is enjoying it.
.

Could end up in a hopeless situation here,as we eat live bacteria and fungi ect just about every day, and enjoy the food and drink they are in.

 

[rae]

However my internal definition of cruelty is causing undue stress/damage/pain to anything alive.
There would be a slight proviso if the one damaging is enjoying it.

Which is exactly my point about cruelty being an entirely human construct. Say a vet operates on a cat to remove a cancer and has to remove its tail. We would not consider that cruel, but all the cat knows is that its tail has gone. If a vet removed a cats tail for a laugh, we would consider that cruel. However the outcome for the cat is identical. Only we can see the difference, the cat cannot.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Which is exactly my point about cruelty being an entirely human construct. Say a vet operates on a cat to remove a cancer and has to remove its tail. We would not consider that cruel, but all the cat knows is that its tail has gone. If a vet removed a cats tail for a laugh, we would consider that cruel. However the outcome for the cat is identical. Only we can see the difference, the cat cannot.

Exactly. And we usually only think of humans as able to be cruel. If a wasp kills a bee we do not say that the wasp is cruel.

 

[Headnavigator]

Could end up in a hopeless situation here,as we eat live bacteria and fungi ect just about every day, and enjoy the food and drink they are in.

Even more hopeless if we extend this to plant life, eg is it cruel to leave a plant to die, unwatered and unfed? I guess Prince Charles might think it is. It is, after all, a living object. Anyone up for devising a moral code that applies to all living things?

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

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.

Wasnt disputing it was cruel, simply that I find it and certain other "cruel" things easy to justify

 

[Hombre]

@Rae, I have a colony of sentient bees that are going to get re-queened in the spring.

 

[newportbuzz]

Could end up in a hopeless situation here,as we eat live bacteria and fungi ect just about every day, and enjoy the food and drink they are in.

taken out of context yes this would lead to a very confusing existance. can i eat to save my own bacteria. or does the bacteria in the sandwich have more right to life?
But when taken with my folowing statement that we won the arms evolution arms race and the prize is dominance over lower beings it all works out rosy as it nicely allows me to eat my sandwich in peace.
It does imply that maybe you should kill the cow before you eat it and proberly since you are so advanced should figure out a way to do it with least suffering but you should definatly eat the cow aswell.

incase its not clear i love my meat. but i am also fond of my hens geese rabbits cats and bees. And when a hen dies for my dinner it goes fast and clean.

 

[Elaine]

I define cruelty as causing unnecessary distress to something - and bees can can be distressed by things that I do as a beekeeper, some of which I feel is justified, such as checking for disease, since I have a duty to look after them. If, when I go to inspect, I feel they are not in a mood to accept my intrusion - I leave them alone.

As illustration, I put in crown board with porter escapes to clear them from a super - I happened to be near the hive about an hour after I had done this, and could hear the commotion of bees in distress - I suited up and lifted the lid, they were beating wings, and all had thier tails in the air exposing their Naserov glands. I couldn't leave things as they were, and removed the crown board and escapes - (we will design a hopfully better clearing system for next year) To leave it as it was, I would define as cruel.

 

[REDWOOD]

It is possable for someone to be cruel to bees as I found out this summer when kids were lighting a bush on fire with a prime swarm in it, there was hundreds of dead bees on the floor, I saved the swarm what was left and are doing just fine, but a beekeeper I don't think would be cruel as happy bees are productive bees.

 

[Skyhook]

taken out of context yes this would lead to a very confusing existance. can i eat to save my own bacteria. or does the bacteria in the sandwich have more right to life?
But when taken with my folowing statement that we won the arms evolution arms race and the prize is dominance over lower beings it all works out rosy as it nicely allows me to eat my sandwich in peace.
It does imply that maybe you should kill the cow before you eat it and proberly since you are so advanced should figure out a way to do it with least suffering but you should definatly eat the cow aswell.

incase its not clear i love my meat. but i am also fond of my hens geese rabbits cats and bees. And when a hen dies for my dinner it goes fast and clean.

I also love meat; but I've been a vegetarian for 30 years. I sort of agree with the 'arms race' argument, but I am capable of moral judgement (unlike for instance a cat). I came to the conclusion that this means I am justified in killing animals if I need to in order to preserve my well-being, but not just because I like the taste.

The upshot of this is that I'm a lacto-vegetarian. I did consider becoming vegan, but as my experience of vegans was not inspiring (most appearing to be malnourished) I settled on vegetarian as a balance/compromise.

I accept that other people choose to eat meat, but do think the law should impose the highest welfare standards practicable.

 

[The Cumbrian]

The upshot of this is that I'm a lacto-vegetarian.

I have never quite got my head around Lacto-vegetarianism from a moral stand point.

It conveniently avoids the fact that it is only possible because of carnivores like myself (IMO) due to the fact that if we all became Laco-vegetarians half the calves would be slaughtered at birth. Not to me acceptable on moral grounds.

 

[Skyhook]

I have never quite got my head around Lacto-vegetarianism from a moral stand point.

It conveniently avoids the fact that it is only possible because of carnivores like myself (IMO) due to the fact that if we all became Laco-vegetarians half the calves would be slaughtered at birth. Not to me acceptable on moral grounds.

You're quite right of course- but, as I say, it's a compromise. The way I look at it, animals have died for my benefit, but a lot less than if I eat meat several times a week- and I think compromising my own health would be going too far.

Life is never black and white, always shades of grey.