Affectively valenced feelings 

Of all affectively valenced feelings, pain is perhaps most at the center of moral questions surrounding the treatment of nonhuman animals. The evidence for vertebrate-like pain in invertebrates is mixed and inconclusive. Many invertebrates have nociceptors, or specialized neural receptors that detect tissue damage. [But] nociception is not sufficient for pain perception (Allen et al. 2005). 

Some insects engage in normal feeding and mating behaviors even after sustaining severe injuries, such as dismemberment (Eisemann et al. 1984; Smith 1991). If confirmed, these findings would suggest either that these animals do not experience pain (Broom 2013), that they do not experience pain in the way that vertebrates do, or that the circumstances generating pain in these lineages differ from those in vertebrates.

Even if cognitively sophisticated invertebrates do not experience pain in the same way that mammals and other vertebrates do, this would not imply they have no morally protectable interests. A being may have a rich phenomenal and affective inner life, and hence a welfare of its own, even if it lacks vertebrate-like experiences in response to tissue damage. It is important to distinguish pain perception narrowly understood from a broader notion of suffering that includes stress, frustration, and other aversive states that flow from the inability to fulfill one’s desires.

—Mikhalevich & Powell. (2020) Minds without spines: Evolutionarily inclusive animal ethics. Animal Sentience

I worked one winter at the local animal shelter. Observing the dogs, I noticed three responses to being placed in a six foot cell with a concrete floor. One, hysteria. The dog had been taken out of its comfort zone and wanted nothing but to get the hell out of jail. Two, depression. Dog would lie there, moaning, clearly unhappy. Three, and this was rare, dog looks around and seems happy as a clam. Warm, dry, meals provided.

Now, regarding bees, I have held bees in package cages for days in a cool dark place. They certainly seemed to be OK with it. When the lights came on, naturally they wanted to get out and do bee stuff. Were they suffering at any point? 

PLB

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