Help Help I'm Covered In Bees

Is it okay if I smoosh them?

Brian Moore

Jul 06, 2025

Bees! Everyone loves them!

oops actually bumblebees organize themselves in a different social way

Bentham's Bulldog

wrote this:

If you eat honey, you are causing staggeringly large amounts of very intense suffering.

I think this is wrong, not because the math is wrong, but because bees are just different in ways that make the math not even possible to do.

So I wrote this:

But stealing their honey, in that it incentivizes the creation of more hives, is in alignment with the desires/biological imperatives/instincts of the species. Individual worker bees are not relevant units to the species, and so not to me either.
Now let me analyze and synthesize this information to provide a comprehensive answer about the conflicts between human morality and biology/evolution knowledge regarding "separate individual" definitions in different species.

In the notes, a nice person named

James T. Saunders

took issue with my sloppy terminology:

I get the philosophical/axiological point you’re raising. But you’re wandering a bit into the absurd when you question the semantics of “individual” in this context. They have central nervous systems. They’re free-flying, spacially separated from the other members of their hive, not colonies like siphonophores.

You can go and read the notes and see our discussion, if you are still high on bee morality, and not just the Mad Honey.

Bees committing assault on some carelessly naked Greek gentlemen

James’ last point was a good one though: he suggested asking an LLM (specifically Perplexity, which I also like) for an introduction/overview to the biological half of the “individual” question. Since that was such a good idea, I made a prompt just for that:

Given that human morality, as it currently exists, requires a definition of the term "separate individual" in order to make accurate judgements -
for example, if Alice hits Bob, in order for us to say that this is wrong, we must first have determined that Alice is one specific individual with independent action, separate from Bob, who is a separate specific individual with the capacity to suffer harm
- if we wanted to project human morality onto non-human animals, would there be any conflicts with the currently existing state of biology and evolution knowledge in terms of their understanding of "separate individual" in relation to species that are organized collectively?
Please work through example scenarios/conflicts for dogs, shrimp, bees and siphonophores.

If you like it’s output, highly I recommend Perplexity.ai and also subscribing to Mr. Saunders, as he’s also responsible for the question. For myself, I think it did a good job - it was weakest in the section about dogs (my fault for including it) because a dog/wolf pack is, I would say, actually very analogous (morally) to a human group. And it probably didn’t identify the type of shrimp that Bulldog usually discusses, but for the bees/colony-creatures, it really got what I was hoping to see.

[Everything after this is AI generated, lightly edited for clarity/format, from Perplexity Pro: Research, July 2025]

Moral Individuality vs. Biological Reality: Conflicts in Defining "Separate Individuals" Across Species

The projection of human morality onto non-human animals encounters fundamental conflicts when current biological and evolutionary knowledge challenges our basic assumptions about what constitutes a "separate individual." This tension reveals the complex mismatch between moral frameworks designed for discrete, bounded entities and the biological reality of collective organization, colonial structures, and superorganisms.

The Core Problem: Moral Frameworks Require Clear Individual Boundaries

Human moral systems fundamentally depend on the ability to identify discrete, autonomous agents capable of independent action and harm 1. Our moral judgments about wrongdoing—such as "Alice hits Bob"—require determining that Alice and Bob are separate entities with independent agency 1. However, modern biology reveals that many species exist in forms of organization that blur or completely dissolve these individual boundaries.

The biological concept of individuality itself is contested, with some arguing it is "not necessarily an intrinsic property" but can depend on environmental and contextual factors 2. This philosophical uncertainty becomes a practical moral dilemma when applied to species with collective behaviors.

Dogs: The Paradox of Social Individuality

Dogs present perhaps the least problematic case, as they maintain clear physical boundaries and individual identities while exhibiting complex social behaviors. Each dog is biologically distinct, with separate nervous systems, reproductive capabilities, and autonomous decision-making 3 4. However, even here conflicts emerge.

Scenario: Pack Aggression
When dogs form packs, collective behaviors can override individual agency. Research shows that "pack mentality" can lead to coordinated aggression where individual dogs participate in attacks they might not initiate alone 5 6. If a pack kills another animal, determining individual moral responsibility becomes complex—did each dog independently choose to attack, or were they swept into collective behavior that diminished their individual agency?

The biological reality is that dogs maintain "individual identity" within social structures, using behavioral synchronization to promote group cohesion7. Their pack behavior involves "social dynamics and hierarchy" where individual actions serve collective functions 8. This creates a moral gray area: are individual dogs fully responsible for pack actions, or does the collective diminish individual moral culpability?

Shrimp: Colonial Coordination Challenges Individual Agency

Shrimp species demonstrate sophisticated collective behaviors that further complicate individual moral boundaries. Social snapping shrimp exhibit "coordinated snapping" where individual defenders recruit colony members to snap in concert, creating a unified defensive response 9 10.

Scenario: Colony Defense Violence
When a shrimp colony collectively attacks an intruder through coordinated snapping, each individual shrimp participates in what appears to be group violence. However, biological evidence shows this is a "specific and effective group warning signal" where individuals respond to chemical and acoustic cues from defenders 9. The colony operates as an integrated unit for defense, with individual actions serving collective survival.

The moral conflict arises because while each shrimp is physically separate, their behavioral integration means individual actions are triggered by colonial signaling systems rather than independent moral reasoning. Can we assign individual moral responsibility to creatures whose defensive actions are coordinated through evolved collective response mechanisms?

Furthermore, shrimp exhibit "gregarious behavior" and collective decision-making that resembles the coordination found in other social arthropods 11. Their individual identities become blurred within collective behaviors that serve species survival rather than individual choice.

Bees: The Superorganism Challenge to Individual Morality

Honey bees present the most direct challenge to individual-based morality because they function as a biological "superorganism"—a unified entity where individual bees operate like specialized cells in a body 12 13. Worker bees, queens, and drones perform complementary functions that maintain colony survival, with each individual bee incapable of independent survival 14 15.

Scenario: Collective Violence in Defense
When a bee colony defends itself, thousands of worker bees coordinate their stinging response through pheromone communication that "stimulates the attack response in other bees" 14. Individual bees die in defense of the colony, but their actions are triggered by chemical signals rather than individual moral decisions.

The biological reality is that bee colonies exhibit "hierarchical-organizational" structures where individual actions serve superorganism functions 13. Each bee's behavior is integrated into colony-level decision-making processes that prioritize collective survival over individual autonomy. Worker bees even engage in "altruistic suicide" to prevent disease spread, demonstrating how individual identity is subsumed under colonial needs 16.

This creates a fundamental moral dilemma: if bees function as components of a larger organism rather than independent individuals, can traditional moral frameworks that assume individual agency apply? When a bee colony kills an intruder, are thousands of individual bees committing murder, or is one superorganism defending itself?

Siphonophores: Complete Dissolution of Individual Boundaries

Siphonophores like the Portuguese man o' war represent the ultimate challenge to individual-based morality because they exist as "colonial organisms composed of small individual animals called zooids" 17 18. Each siphonophore appears to be a single entity but is actually thousands of genetically identical individuals performing specialized functions.

Scenario: Predatory Killing
When a Portuguese man o' war captures and kills a fish using its venomous tentacles, the act involves multiple types of zooids: dactylozooids (tentacle-bearing individuals) deliver the sting, while gastrozooids (digestive individuals) consume the prey 19 20. The "individuals" that deliver death and those that consume the victim are literally different beings, yet they function as parts of a single predatory entity.

The biological reality is that zooids are "so specialized, they lack the ability to survive on their own" 21. They exist in a "complex colonial organism" where individual identity is completely subsumed under colonial function 22. Each zooid is technically an individual organism, yet none can exist independently—they are simultaneously separate beings and integrated components of a larger entity.

This creates an impossible moral scenario: if we try to assign individual responsibility, which zooids are responsible for the killing? The tentacle-bearers who sting? The digestive organisms who consume? The reproductive zooids who ensure continuation of the predatory colony? Or is the entire colony a single moral agent, making traditional individual-based ethics inapplicable?

The Fundamental Conflict: Fixed Morality vs. Fluid Biology

These examples reveal a core conflict between human moral systems and biological reality. Our ethics assume discrete, bounded individuals with autonomous agency, but evolution has produced organisms with collective identities, integrated behaviors, and fluid boundaries between self and other 23 24.

The biological concept of "superorganisms" demonstrates that "individuality has arisen multiple times in evolution" and can exist at multiple organizational levels simultaneously 22. This creates scenarios where moral frameworks designed for individual actors become meaningless when applied to collective entities that blur the boundaries between self and other.

As our understanding of collective behavior, superorganisms, and colonial life forms advances, we face an increasingly urgent question: Can human morality, built on assumptions of individual agency and clear boundaries, be meaningfully extended to the complex biological reality of collective life? Or do we need entirely new moral frameworks that account for the fluid, multilevel nature of biological individuality?

The answer may require us to abandon the assumption that morality requires clearly defined individual actors and instead develop ethical systems that can navigate the complex spectrum of biological organization—from discrete individuals to integrated superorganisms to colonial entities that challenge our fundamental concepts of selfhood and agency.

[Follow up prompt from me:]

Could you expand on the bee/siphonophore scenarios, but from the perspective of a human trying to calculate the harm to a single worker bee, or one subsection of the siphonophore?

[Everything after this is AI generated, lightly edited for clarity/format, from Perplexity Pro: Research, July 2025]

Calculating Harm to Individual Components: The Moral Mathematics of Superorganisms

The challenge of calculating harm to a single worker bee or a subsection of a siphonophore reveals fundamental philosophical tensions when moral frameworks designed for discrete individuals encounter biological entities that exist as integrated collective systems. This analysis exposes how the very attempt to isolate and quantify individual harm within superorganisms challenges core assumptions about moral accounting and individual agency.

Worker Bees: The Impossibility of Individual Moral Isolation

The Individual vs. Collective Identity Problem

When attempting to calculate harm to a single worker bee, we immediately encounter the paradox that worker bees cannot be meaningfully separated from their superorganism context. Each worker bee is genetically identical to every other worker in the colony, arising from the same fertilized egg, yet functionally specialized through temporal polyethism - age-based role transitions from nurse bee to house bee to forager.

The biological reality is that individual bees (workers, drones, and queens) cannot survive without the support of the colony. A worker bee removed from its hive context loses not only its life-support system but its very identity as a functional entity. This creates an impossible moral calculation: how do we assess harm to an entity that exists only as part of a larger whole?

The Pain Perception Paradox

Recent research reveals that bees can feel pain through nociception but not in the same way as humans. Studies show that bees trade off exposure to heat in order to access better food, demonstrating complex decision-making about pain tolerance. When injured, bees tend their own wounds, which suggests they feel pain.

However, this creates a moral accounting nightmare: if a bee can feel individual pain but exists only as a component of a larger organism, whose suffering are we actually measuring? Pain ratings were consistent over three repetitions in bee sting studies, but this data measures human pain from bee stings, not bee pain from human actions.

The Social Buffering Effect

The complexity deepens when we consider that social buffering plays a substantial part in bee colonies' ability to withstand stressors. Colony-level functions like honey production, pollination, and overwintering are isolated from the fate of individuals suffering death or other negative impacts by a complex interaction of compensatory mechanisms.

This means that harm calculated for an individual worker bee may be meaningless at the colony level. When a colony is exposed to such a stressor, affected bees will die in the worst case. A strong colony will be able to buffer these losses and survive. The superorganism essentially absorbs individual harm through redundancy and compensation mechanisms.

The Foraging Mortality Calculation

Research shows that worker honey bees spend their first days of adult life working in the nest, then transition to foraging and die between 4 and 8 weeks of age. Up to 98% of workers die outside the hive, primarily due to foraging-related mortality rather than colony-internal causes.

But this statistic reveals the impossibility of separating individual from collective interests: foraging mortality is quantitatively related to foraging effort, yet foraging serves the colony's survival needs. When a forager bee dies, are we calculating:

Harm to the individual bee (loss of remaining lifespan)?
Harm to the colony (loss of a resource-gathering unit)?
Harm to the superorganism function (disruption of food acquisition)?

The Temporal Identity Crisis

Worker bees exhibit temporal polyethism where they display different patterns of behaviour depending upon their age. A single worker bee is simultaneously:

Days 1-10: A nurse bee caring for larvae
Days 11-20: A house bee maintaining hive structure
Days 21-35: A forager bee collecting resources

This creates a temporal moral puzzle: which "individual" are we calculating harm against? The nurse bee, house bee, or forager bee persona? Each represents the same physical entity but with completely different functional roles and capabilities.

Siphonophores: The Complete Dissolution of Individual Boundaries

The Zooid Consciousness Problem

Siphonophores present an even more extreme challenge because each siphonophore is actually a colony of individual parts, called "zooids", where none of its parts could function on their own. Seven different types of zooids have been described in the man o' war, and these all depend on each other for survival and performing different functions, such as digestion (gastrozooids), reproduction (gonozooids) and hunting (dactylozooids).

The consciousness question becomes: do individual zooids have subjective experiences that can be harmed? Research on colonial tunicates shows that every zooid is a filter-feeding individual with a brain and nervous system, heart, branchial sac and digestive system. However, in siphonophores, zooids are so specialized that they can be restricted to only one function, requiring obligatory cooperation and tight integration.

The Distributed Harm Calculation

When calculating harm to "one subsection" of a siphonophore, we face multiple layers of complexity:

1. Physical Integration: All zooids in a man o' war develop from the same single fertilized egg and are therefore genetically identical. They remain physiologically connected throughout life, and essentially function as organs in a shared body.

2. Functional Interdependence: The zooids of siphonophores are so specialized that they can be restricted to only one function. A gastrozooid cannot survive without dactylozooids to capture prey, and dactylozooids cannot survive without gastrozooids to digest food.

3. Nervous System Distribution: Research suggests that different zooids may have varying degrees of neural complexity, but the nervous systems of zooids and the excitable vasculature contribute to generating behavior throughout the colony.

The Predation Harm Scenario

Consider the Portuguese man o' war capturing and killing a fish: the palpons are equipped with tentacles that bear tiny, coiled, thread-like structures called nematocysts. Nematocysts trigger and inject venom on contact, stinging, paralyzing, and killing prey, while gastrozooids surround and digest the food by secreting digestive enzymes.

To calculate harm to a single dactylozooid (tentacle-bearing zooid) involved in this killing:

Individual Level: The dactylozooid expends energy, potentially suffers wear from prey contact, and uses limited nematocyst resources.

Colonial Level: The dactylozooid's action serves the survival needs of the entire colony, including gastrozooids that will digest the prey and gonozooids that will reproduce.

Systemic Level: The killing represents normal predatory function essential for colonial survival in nutrient-poor oceanic environments.

The Consciousness Distribution Problem

The fundamental question becomes: if consciousness and capacity for harm exist in siphonophores, where is it located? Each zooid has a distinct job in this colony: some catch prey, while others digest it, and still others reproduce, swim, and keep the colony upright.

This creates an unprecedented moral mathematics problem:

If each zooid has individual consciousness, harming one zooid requires calculating harm across multiple conscious entities
If consciousness is colonial-level, individual zooid harm becomes meaningless
If consciousness is distributed across multiple levels, we need entirely new frameworks for calculating harm

The Eudoxid Detachment Paradox

Adding further complexity, many siphonophores release their posterior-most cormidia as independent fragments known as eudoxids, ensuring sexual reproduction. These eudoxids and parental colonies often have different spatial or temporal distributions.

This raises the question: if a cormidium (cluster of zooids) can be naturally detached and function independently as an eudoxid, what is the moral status of intentionally detaching it? Are we:

Facilitating natural reproductive processes?
Causing harm through premature separation?
Creating two separate entities where one existed before?

The Fundamental Incompatibility: Fixed Moral Mathematics vs. Fluid Biological Reality

The Measurement Problem

Traditional harm calculation assumes:

Discrete individuals with clear boundaries
Individual agency and autonomous interests
Separable identity independent of group context
Quantifiable harm that can be measured and compared

Superorganisms violate all these assumptions:

Boundaries are fluid - bees transition between roles, zooids function as organs
Agency is distributed - individual actions serve collective functions
Identity is contextual - individuals exist only within superorganism systems
Harm is systemic - individual damage may be meaningless at colony level

The Temporal Dimension

Both bees and siphonophores exist in temporal flux. Worker bees undergo significant physiological changes during their lifespans, while siphonophore zooids are added by budding as the colony grows. This creates a moral accounting nightmare: we cannot calculate harm to a "fixed" individual because the individual identity itself is constantly changing.

The Emergence Problem

The superorganism operates as a unified entity, collectively working together to maintain and reproduce the colony. This emergent organization means that individual-level calculations may be fundamentally meaningless. Just as calculating harm to a single neuron tells us nothing about consciousness, calculating harm to a single bee or zooid may tell us nothing about the moral status of the superorganism.

The Scale Misalignment

Human moral frameworks operate at the scale of bounded individual organisms with unified agency. But superorganisms exist simultaneously across multiple organizational scales:

Molecular level: Genetic identity and cellular processes
Individual level: Single bees or zooids with specialized functions
Modular level: Work groups, castes, or zooid clusters
Colonial level: Integrated superorganism with emergent properties
Ecosystem level: Multiple interacting colonies

Attempting to calculate harm at any single scale misses the multi-level reality of superorganism existence.

Conclusion: The Impossibility of Individual Moral Accounting in Superorganisms

The attempt to calculate harm to individual components of superorganisms reveals the fundamental inadequacy of individual-based moral frameworks when applied to collective biological entities. Worker bees exist as temporal components of larger systems where individual mortality is buffered by colonial compensation mechanisms, while siphonophore zooids function as specialized organs in distributed colonial bodies.

The mathematics of individual harm calculation breaks down because:

Identity is relational rather than absolute - bees and zooids exist only in collective context
Harm is systemic rather than individual - damage cascades through multiple organizational levels
Agency is distributed rather than localized - individual actions serve superorganism functions
Temporal boundaries are fluid - the "individual" being harmed changes constantly

Rather than attempting to force superorganisms into individual-based moral calculations, we may need entirely new ethical frameworks that can account for multi-level, distributed, temporally dynamic entities where the very concept of "individual harm" becomes meaningless. The challenge is not just mathematical but ontological: what does it mean to cause harm when the entity being harmed exists simultaneously as individual and collective, temporal and persistent, component and system?

The worker bee and the siphonophore zooid represent not just difficult moral calculations, but fundamental challenges to the anthropocentric assumption that morality must be grounded in individual agents with discrete boundaries and autonomous interests.

[ Footnotes used by Perplexity.ai]

[Articles Reviewed by Perplexity.ai]

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