As pointed out in papers on the subject, there's a huge difference between
a responding to a stimulus, and the feeling of pain.

I suspect bees feel an equivalent of pain to electroshock.  

Years ago, a Grad Student, studying whether bees could detect weak geomagnetic fields, first tried conditioning bees to fields of varying strength, and rewarding them if they responded appropriately.  

The results - NADA.  He couldn't find any evidence of perception.  

Then he hit upon negative conditioning.  If they failed to perceive and respond to an existing geomagnetic field, they got an electro-shock.  The bees suddenly became extremely perceptive.  

He did the conditioning properly.  He wasn't training the bees to respond just to avoid a shock.  They only got a hot foot if they made an incorrect choice as to whether a field was or was not present.

Somewhere, buried in storage, I've a copy of the thesis.

Jerry

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