The bees come up from the apple orchard next door to die on our porch, as if they were simply exhausted from being whisked around from farm to farm as slaves to our surplus feeding habits. Animals without choice sometimes simply choose to die. I’d bet bees have “feelings” somewhere inside their little buzzing mammillary bodies. Maybe they just can’t hack it anymore.
My understanding is that they’re eusocial, but vote individually on where to feed based on who makes the best sexy waggle dance symbolizing food direction and quality, and have bee quorums concerning when and where to move the hive. Elections have consequences, as they say, so they are rather “picky” in their own little individual and species-specific manners.
We humans feel a need to enslave everything, from ourselves to mackerel to feed the formerly-wild salmon now bred in large ocean nets to friggin’ anti-biotic-resistant bacterial plasmids to run off our hot RNA strands for in situ sense and non-sense, and other sexy gene-jock what-not. Yes, we purposely create anti-biotic resistant bacteria as slaves. Please don’t forget to flame the lip of that beaker when you’re finished with that batch! Thanks! Wouldn’t want those little E. coli republicans to escape just any non-containment facility.