can bees sense compassion?

[Oddball]

Ok, so bees have made a home in my chimney yet again.

Anyway, i was standing out there earlier today, right by the hive and close to where they were swarming. I felt a sudden wave of compassion for the creatures, and suddenly they swarmed around me.

This happened sevral times before. Now i know they can detect fear, can they compassion, or is this just a coincedence?

 

[Warpmind]

...How do you know they didn't send you a telepathic impulse?

Mentally controlled by a bee hivemind, now there's an interesting notion.

 

[Oddball]

...How do you know they didn't send you a telepathic impulse?

Mentally controlled by a bee hivemind, now there's an interesting notion.

ha! Ha! Ha... VERY funny. What do you really think hapened? I was asking this in seriousness

 

[Mako Star]

Nonsense, Warpmind! The bee hivemind is too smart to reveal itself online!

..I may have said too much..

 

[captainproton]

To my knowledge, there aren't any pheromones associated with compassion, while fear causes you to squirt out all kinds of chemicals, and bees are sensitive to such things. More than likely, they detected your presence and investigated, then filed you under Not A Threat.

 

[Oddball]

To my knowledge, there aren't any pheromones associated with compassion, while fear causes you to squirt out all kinds of chemicals, and bees are sensitive to such things. More than likely, they detected your presence and investigated, then filed you under Not A Threat.

i kind of like to think.it was more than that. Like maybe there's something about bees we dont know yet, espeacilly considering the timing. Although you could be right. I considered the possibity myselfI should probably research and see if the body goes through any chemical changes when feeling compassion

Edit: apparently, a bee's sense of smell is as good as any dogs. So its possible, sense oxitocen is released when we feel compassion. I'll.do.more research

 

[Wavelength]

Nonsense, Warpmind! The bee hivemind is too smart to reveal itself online!

..I may have said too much..

And no one ever heard from Mako Star again.

Honestly, there's a ton that we don't know about bees.  Their behavior seems to be more nuanced than we thought, but we don't really know any of the rhyme or reason behind it.  So, maybe they sensed something, maybe it was just a coincidence.  I'd be inclined to agree with Captain Proton - makes perfect sense that they traveled as a group to investigate something nearby, and then, deeming it as Not A Threat, flew away and went about more important business.

 

[captainproton]

@Wavelength: don't you mean, "more important BUZZness?"

 

[cabfe]

Or maybe they didn't sense a physical odor but a burst of (positive) energy?

I don't think it's been proved scientifically, but some people claim to be able to send energy through emotions, like anger or love.

The only thing I can vouch for is the energy you send when practicing martial arts. I still remember years later what I felt when I assisted a training of kendo (japanese sword art). The sensei had so much power coming from him it was almost physical, even though he was some 20 meters away.

So maybe bees can feel more intangible elements around them?

Aren't dogs and cats known to come to their masters when they feel down too?

 

[Probotector 200X]

I definitely think there's some kind of "energy" associated with emotions. Not that I know much about the science of anything of the sort, but still...

 

[Warpmind]

ha! Ha! Ha... VERY funny. What do you really think hapened? I was asking this in seriousness

Yeah, I know; just had to bring up the silly response first, and didn't feel I should add a more serious response before someone else replied.

That said, I think captainproton is on the right track - you didn't sweat out pheromones associated with fear or anger, but it seems to me calm emotional states have their own sets of pheromones, which is probably what the bees picked up on.

So, more importantly, how are you going to address the problem of a beehive in the chimney?

 

[Oddball]

@cabfe: maybe bees are empathic? I think alot, if not all social animals are empathic

@warpmind: when we had them before, we had a beekeeper come.and get them out. Which all of them have been robust hives. Its also niot surprising sense we dont spray our yard and have wildflowers, a garden, and lavender plants planted around the property

 

[Warpmind]

Perhaps investing in a couple of these would persuade the bees to shack up somewhere not inside your chimney?

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive

 

[Kes]

Bees empathetic?  Not sure if that's quite the right word, but I give this as an example of something (who knows what to call it?)

There is a species of killer bees which accidentally became imported into the UK a few years back.  Highly aggressive towards each other, real fighters.  The great fear was that they would move into hives and wipe out the native bees.  Sure enough, they did get in - but what happened was that the native Bumble Bee (a distinct species, not just an endearing term for them) pacified them.  Those aggressive bees settled in and are now no more aggressive than any other bee.  How did the native bees do it?  No one's sure, but they did.

 

[Oddball]

One word: phermones

I read that some bee phermones can have lasting phisiological effects on bees. So maybe the bumblebees produced a phermone that pacified the killee bees

 

[hian]

Simple answer - no.

Bees do not have a brain sophisticated enough to understand compassion, much less sense it.

The bigger problem here is with the inherently pattern-seeking and biased human brain, which leads people to see system and intent

in events where non really exists, which leads to misunderstanding of natural phenomenon like these.

Point in case - go through this list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases and consider your world-view, everyday experiences,

opinions etc. and see how many of them cannot be chalked up as partially, or significantly, the result of one or several of these biases

playing tricks on your perceptions and your mind.

Chances are these bees would swarm on you no matter how you were feeling, and most of the time, unless a very aggressive brand

of bees, would leave you alone.

Or maybe they didn't sense a physical odor but a burst of (positive) energy?

I don't think it's been proved scientifically, but some people claim to be able to send energy through emotions, like anger or love.

The only thing I can vouch for is the energy you send when practicing martial arts. I still remember years later what I felt when I assisted a training of kendo (japanese sword art). The sensei had so much power coming from him it was almost physical, even though he was some 20 meters away.

So maybe bees can feel more intangible elements around them?

Aren't dogs and cats known to come to their masters when they feel down too?

The "energy" you send in martial art, is a combination of experiences, non-verbal communication, and again, human biases.

The reason a human is sensitive to the "energy" of another person in the context of martial arts, is because

1.) You already have some impression of your own physical situation in comparison to the person you're facing, which impacts

both your conscious and sub-/unconscious mind and mental prospects at facing off against that person in a violent or potentially violent encounter.

2.) You're consciously and/or sub-consciously aware that the body-language of the person you're facing indicates confidence,

skill, strength, intent to attack etc etc.

If I had prepared a room for the two of us, where we were scheduled to have lunch - then made it pitch-black, and put your Sensei in

a corner of the room, with his Shinai in hand and everything, chances are, depending on the degree of my deception,

that you wouldn't notice anything at all.

This is because there is no magical energy travelling between the two of you - only visual and auditory cues interpeted by

your brain through past-experiences and natural responses.

If I rob you of those cues, I also rob you of your preception of the so-called "energy".

@cabfe: maybe bees are empathic? I think alot, if not all social animals are empathic

@warpmind: when we had them before, we had a beekeeper come.and get them out. Which all of them have been robust hives. Its also niot surprising sense we dont spray our yard and have wildflowers, a garden, and lavender plants planted around the property

No, most if not all animals are not empathetic. They might on occasion be sympathetic, but not empathetic.

Empathy is the ability to put your self in other people's shoes, and understand their frame of mind,

which requires a very high level of cognition on the level of the brain - it does not mean whether or not you feel sorry for someone

or something to that effect, which would be "sympathy".

Case in point, criminal psychopaths usually display extremely high levels of empathy, with little to no sympathy,

which is why they're often seen by most people as being socially adept, easy to communicate with etc.

After all, to truly be able to understand another person's point of view you need to emotionally detach yourself, lest your judgement

get clouded by your own emotions.

Problem of course, is that being emotionally detached, also means being emotionally detached from feelings like sympathy.

Some animals do feel sympathy - but then again, the animals that exhibit some levels of sympathy have vastly more complex brains than bees,

and it is therefore, even without looking at science pertaining to "bee brains", almost entirely certain that bees do not feel sympathy.

 

[Oddball]

@hian: I wouldnt say no animals feel empathy. Elephants have bigger brain to body ratios than we do. Although what you say is scientificly sound, i was originally thinking i secreted a chemical that made them curious. And i do understand that a swarm of angry bees woukd attack no matter what

 

[hian]

@hian: I wouldnt say no animals feel empathy. Elephants have bigger brain to body ratios than we do. Although what you say is scientificly sound, i was originally thinking i secreted a chemical that made them curious. And i do understand that a swarm of angry bees woukd attack no matter what

I said most, if not all - not definitately all or something to that effect.


If you want to get technical, let's remember that humans are also animals, and that our close evolutionary relatives, such as


other primates, also have large brains and exhibit various levels of empathy.


Elephants are highly intelligent, as is obvious by the vast amount of research done on elephant cognition -


However, we're talking about bees here, and other animals (who're by and large just as incapable of empathy as insects) were


brought up to make the argument that bees might have capacity for empathy or compassion.


Bees are not other animals, and they certainly aren't elephants - end of story.

 

[Milena]

Ants feel compassion towards each other, they even think of teamwork. I can say the same with bees.

 

[hian]

Ants feel compassion towards each other, they even think of teamwork. I can say the same with bees.

No, they don't. That's simply, and factually, incorrect. They don't think of anything - they merely act, as is the case with

most of the less complex biological organisms. They don't cooperate because of some conscious and deliberate thought to

do so, but because they're hardwired to do so (as are bees).

Compassion is an extremely complex emotional response that requires both empathy and sympathy in order to happen,

and the ant brain/bee brain does not have the complexity for this behavior, nor is there anything in their outward

behavior suggesting that they do.