A BEE-MAID’S TALE
A BEE-MAID’S TALE
By Alan Baxter
There’s been a lot of discussion in scientific circles about whether animals are sentient beings. Most recently, The New York Declaration of 2024 says:
“….. there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds…..
…the empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates, including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes, and many invertebrates including, at minimum, cephalopod molluscs, decapod crustaceans, and insects.” 1
The apparent ‘intelligence’ of honey bees with their relatively large brains, their capacity for learning, and their highly sophisticated social model, would suggest that they do indeed have a degree of awareness of themselves and their surroundings. Sometimes, when I’m inspecting my hives, I wonder what it must feel like to be one of the residents inside. Here’s an imaginary interview with a beespokesperson conducted by a New Apiary Times reporter:
“I was quietly going about my business making wax and getting ready for guard duties when, suddenly, a giant monster like King Kong wearing a suit of white armour ripped off the roof. Then, using a massive crowbar, it prised off the ceiling that we’ve spent hours carefully draught proofing with propolis, making a crack like thunder that reverberated all through the house. The terrifying monster then filled our home with foul smoke, letting in blindingly bright light. It started to pull out the furniture looking for our mother, crushing dozens of hapless girls to death. Needless to say, we were scared out of our wits, and it took us all a couple of days to recover from the trauma, the effects of the smoke, and for the life of the family to get back to normal.
A week later the monster came back, and we were put through the same ordeal all over again. But this time it was even worse. The ugly square box of ours, low down near the ground, was getting too crowded and half of us were getting ready to move out. The scouts had found us a lovely new character hole high up in a tree with great views over the countryside. We’d stopped feeding Mum so she could slim down enough to fly.
We were getting really excited and had even built new cradles so we could leave some baby-mothers behind. But, to our horror, that monster crushed them all with the poor helpless little creatures still inside!
You wouldn’t believe what it did next. That utter monster took half our furniture (Some still with the babies in) with all my younger sisters and put them in another box. It was completely stupid because we were going to move out anyway and could have saved it the trouble.
But the monster didn’t know that it missed one of the baby-mother-cradles. That means we can make another one when it’s not looking and still nip off to that secret dream home of ours in the woods!
But for now we older ones are left in a big box with a load of empty furniture and our mother, who’s also getting on a bit. She doesn’t cope with sudden changes anymore and will soon start to run out of eggs. Our problem is that it’s our job to guard the home and to go out collecting food. We’re no longer equipped to look after mum and the kids, on top of cleaning the house and building furniture. And it’s no good asking the men to help, they’re only interested in one thing, and we all know what that is!
At least the monster left us with plenty of delicious homemade food up in the loft, so we won’t starve. But I don’t know what the young ones and the babies left behind will do for food if they haven’t got us around to find and fetch it. Perhaps it will give them some of that white junk food it gave grandma and her girls last winter.
We are trying our best to adapt and get on rebuilding our shattered family. We just hope
that the giant monster with his flame thrower will leave us alone now “.
Reference:
1. https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/nydeclaration/declaration
Alan Baxter
Cornell Master Beekeeper 2026
Tel +44 7478 961517
Email: alanbaxter@me.com
20/08/2026