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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>
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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 29 Apr 2017 15:45:39 -0400
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Gene Ash: Simply you have PROJECTED your own feeling unto the hive and really have no way to determine if the individual bees or the hive is 'suffering'. 

Exactly. And why do we feel so much sympathy towards honey bees and not towards wasps, ants, and termites? (Granted, some of us do appreciate the others, too). Most of entomology, of course, is the study of getting rid of insects. Apart from honey bees, silk worms, and lac scales, the concept of beneficial insects is fairly new.

Tom Seeley, by the way, is not part of Cornell's Entomology Department, but rather is a Professor in Neurobiology. If honey bee colonies have neural networks, and a form of consciousness, then it's a pretty good bet then so do ants and colony forming wasps. They certainly appear to "care" for their young, the same as mammals do. 

But again, the so-called behaviors of insects may be emergent properties of the aggregation of neurologically limited individuals. Finally, experts on human consciousness are at a loss as to what it is, whether it is an emergent property of neural networks, a ghost or spirit, or a product of imagination. And what about yeast colonies or cybernetic entities? 

PLB

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