> Consciousness is a much-debated field, and personally I doubt that bees are ever conscious at any time. 

Any organism can make a choice. An amoeba chooses warmth over cold, eating over starving. Consciousness, on the other hand, is essentially the capacity to form a comprehensive world view. No one really knows what consciousness is or who has it, so it would be unwise to suggest that bees don't have it. 

They definitely have a comprehensive world view. They are acquainted with vast areas of terrain, do collective decision making, have very definite notions of what constitutes a foe. Bee colonies exhibit an inherited intelligence which contains all sorts of instinctual behaviors. 

This does not preclude consciousness any more than instincts or reflexive behaviors in humans precludes consciousness. One can act instinctively, reflexively, and be conscious at the same time. To me consciousness is similar to awareness, and most animals have degrees of awareness. 

Going back to inherited intelligence, take one look at a typical beekeeper and you can see: the beekeeper has intimate knowledge of what bees look for in an enemy. The beekeeper wears smooth, light clothing and covers his face with a veil, because bees are on the offensive for dark colored, wooly creatures with big eyes and other openings in their faces which they fly into and sting. 

I think it's safe to say we know more than they do. Man has more acquired knowledge than most other organisms, that's what distinguishes us. Nobody really knows what consciousness is, so you could just as easily assume that all organisms with nervous systems and memory possess some form of consciousness. What that is like, we are free to imagine. 

I like to imagine how the bees see the world, both the individual bees and the colony. It opens a window to nature. They have their own special point of view, where the most exciting thing is a great patch of flowers on a warm summer day. Imagining the world as bees might see it makes our world richer. 

Thinking of them as a bunch of little robots caught in infinite loops of a subroutine like a dumb computer, makes the world seem poorer than it is. 

Pete

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