There has recently been lots of discussion here on bees feeling pain and other cognitive functions.  I think these questions are impossible to answer anytime soon.  We can have opinions.  I have opinions.  I personally think bees feel pain and can think in a limited way.  But, I can not provide the slightest proof for that opinion.  And no one else is any better off regardless of which side of the argument your opinion lays.
How much can an animal understand?  Last night I was watching a TV program.  My dog is an intense TV watcher.  She does not like other animals on TV.  Particularly she does not like elephants and dogs on TV.  She barks at them aggressively.  Most animals it is just a couple of barks and a few growls for as long as the animal is on the TV.  Last nite a mouse was shown.  She was really aggressively barking at the mouse.  I told her the usual stuff about being quite and she paid me the normal amount of attention.  None.  Then I told her it was "only a mouse and mice are only about two inches long" and held up my fingers to show her what two inches was.  Not another peep from her.  I put the only a mouse.... in quotes because that is exactly what I said to her.  What does this show?  To me it shows she understood enough to know that the mouse was not a threat.  To you it may show nothing at all.  I could not argue against the opposing opinion.

We do not really understand memories in humans.  Yet without memories how could we think?  But, we are starting to make headway in the mechanics of memory in humans and also much lower life forms such as sea slugs.  Both involve exactly the same mechanical processes of making new synapse connections.  Last nite I watched a Nova program on this exact subject.This Nova program is "Memory Hackers."  It was copyrighted in 2016 by WGBH.  It is available on line from several sources all of which cost a few bucks.  Or you can go to any public library and ask them to order it for you on inter-library loan if that library does not happen to have it.
This program is not going to answer the bee questions.  But, it will provide you with some food for thought.  It will also open your eyes as to how dirt easy it is to implant totally false memories into another person which that other person will be 100%  convinced are correct.  It also has a bit of coverage of people who have super memories and can remember what happened and what they did right down to what they ate for breakfast on any date years in the past.  I think such research might someday answer the question "Can a bee feel pain."
Dick

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