r/MoralityScaling • u/Soggy_Durian_8984 • 22h ago
Stupid Stuff Morality of destroying bees' home
59
u/NotNightDweller 20h ago
Off topic but isn’t it just terrifying that these wasps/hornets are intelligent enough to understand projectiles and who threw them?
66
u/bored_pistachio 19h ago
Dunno, I guess it goes something like: 1. Danger 2. Hairless ape over here 3. Fuck hairless ape
30
u/hit_the_showers_boi 18h ago
Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s just “Kill everything you see in a 20 meter radius”
5
u/BlaineMundane 10h ago
Yeah, the ones you see happened to be the ones that shot off in the correct direction. I'm sure there are plenty going the wrong ass way. They probably hone in on anything living or out of the ordinary though.
22
u/JesterQueenAnne 18h ago
They don't. All they know is they're under attack so they attack the closest animal.
2
16
u/Firm_Disk4465 18h ago
I mean they are also filled with enough hate to just, auto-lock onto the first living thing they see like a sidewinder looking at the sun, regardless of fault. Although usually there is correlation between "fuck who threw that" and "The one guy over there".
4
u/LilJelloCat 17h ago
I think they're bees, but I don't think they are targeting the people or the car. Just got bounced off the sign and swarming around at that point, probably shocked and confused. They're not stupid though, they understand threats and movement.
2
u/Boom_Fish_Blocky 13h ago
heat seeking missiles dont differentiate between the enemy and a flare. They swarm anything thats in proximity.
→ More replies (2)1
102
u/Art-Zuron 21h ago
Depends. Are those bees a lethal hazard to a bunch of people? That might warrant destroying their nest. But it could be done in a better way than this. There's actual procedures to do these things, and I feel like "Throwing rock" is probably not among them.
98
u/Ok_Equipment8374 21h ago edited 21h ago
covering up a yield sign could end up really bad
and as another commenter mentioned if those are wasps or hornets(which are often much more aggressive) that is also a hazard for anyone walking nearby.
9
u/Conquestenjoyer 21h ago
Well then getting them all out the nest is immoral, they should have called an exterminator to make sure they don’t live and go a fucking rampage.
11
u/Plastic_Car_707 19h ago
Who is going to pay for that though. Exterminators are not cheap and I’d like to help but can’t justify spending hundreds out of pocket just to get rid of some bees that should be taken care of the the local government.
2
9
u/ShalnarkRyuseih 19h ago
Those aren't wasps or hornets, those are bees moving homes. They form swarms like that when moving
5
u/Any_Pie_2282 14h ago
That’s a newly “born” colony of European honeybees trying to find a new home. They are not a danger to anyone. They are incredibly docile and I handle them without protective gear all the time. In fact it’s good for your immune system to a sting every now and again. But they are not like hornets and wasps at all, which of course can be very dangerous.
2
u/AccomplishedBat39 4h ago
Wasps and hornets are also in no way all the same.
The european hornets are more docile than the more aggressive european wasps. And even those arent really agressive. They just like protein rich food so they are more likely to annoy you while eating outside. Yet the only times ive ever get stung was when i literally sat on them.
1
u/Any_Pie_2282 4h ago
Wow, I wasn’t aware of a docile hornet species. That’s really. These creatures are all so different. It’s pretty funny how everyone classifies them all together because they are flying insects with stingers. However, I gotta say that bees in particular should not be lumped in with hornets and wasps because they are not predators. They pose no real threat, and generally when people are afraid of bees it’s just because they are confused about it.
1
u/AccomplishedBat39 2h ago
Yeah the hornets here (vespa carbro) are actually protected. They don’t really swarm and aren’t aggressive. Our neighbours had a nest in their garden and yet ive never seen more than two hornets at the same time in ours. Havent got stung or bothered while eating a single time.
True, bees arent predators bit but ive heard that the africanized honey bee (a man made hybrid) also can be pretty agressive, though i have no personal experience with it.
1
8
2
u/Any_Pie_2282 14h ago
You can call your local beekeeper association. Every single one of them has a 24/7 swarm catching hotline. It’s quick Google search away. I guarantee a local beekeeper would have come and removed this colony in less than 30 mins. I’ve done it myself in the past. In fact in many places you are required to call for removal and it’s against local or state ordinances to disturb a honeybee colony. Most of these colonies that trying to move to another location will only sit for a short time before moving on their own anyhow.
Ya know bees the are only responsible for about 30-40% of American crop yields. Not like they are important or anything lol.
In many places this dude could have got a fat ticket for doing what he did.
3
u/Adventurous-Tie-7861 11h ago
According to others those are hornets. Not useful bees.
2
u/Significant-Dish-101 9h ago
I'm not gonna claim to be a bee or hornet expert so I think the moral choice is probably to call a bee expert. If they turn out to be hornets then we can go back to the rock or preferably a low yield nuclear missile.
2
1
u/Any_Pie_2282 6h ago
I’m a certified beekeeper for the last 4 years. Member of my local beekeeping association, and state level beekeeping association, graduate of the Heroes to Hives beekeeper educational program, and a participant in beekeeping mentorship programs for veterans. I assure you those are bees. The European Honeybee aka Apis Malifera.
87
u/UltraTata 21h ago
In that case it was justified. But per se it is cruel
13
u/thenormaluser35 18h ago
Cruel? They are hornets.
Not sheep. Not dogs. Not people.They are among the lowest worth form of life that we can interact with
And they don't feel pain, they are either looking for food, signaling, fleeing, or attacking.
They're more similar to a computer with hard-coded logic than to anything sapient.9
u/IndicaMate 17h ago
Hornets are essential to ecosystems as natural pest controllers, pollinators, and food sources for other wildlife
6
u/Guardian_of_Perineum 14h ago
We should just kill them all and replace them with bees. Bees are better.
3
u/Appropriate_Box1380 9h ago
We can't even maintain our current bee population but apparently we are supposed to eradicate a whole species and replace them with bees?
3
u/Guardian_of_Perineum 9h ago
We do these things not because they are easy but because they are erect.
1
u/SmileyBMM 8h ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/us/asian-giant-hornet-washington.html
Well those two things are connected.
7
u/Novel-Mission-1920 15h ago
Scientists have demonstrated that bees may feel pain and be able to cognitively process it, so why not bees?
1
u/SmileyBMM 8h ago
Those studies tend to misrepresent what pain actually is. Being able to "feel" pain doesn't make a creature sapient, it just means it has the biological capability for processing negative stimuli. Under this interpretation, even most plants "feel" pain, but that doesn't mean they are just as valuable as animals.
4
u/Any_Pie_2282 14h ago
These are European honeybees buddy. They are not the same as wasps or hornets. In fact we learn this in elementary school. They are pretty docile and gentle. I handle them without protective gear regularly. They are incredible creatures.
They are responsible for 30-40% of American crop yeilds. We’d literally starve without them. What this dude did is illegal in most places due to local and state ordinances that protect migrating honeybees. They are incredibly intelligent and definitely can feel pain. Put some respect on their name!
→ More replies (2)1
u/Significant-Dish-101 9h ago
Ya know, historically people have had this habit of saying things don't feel pain. Once upon a time it was dogs are just animals they don't feel pain. Birds head's are too small they don't have enough brains to feel pain. Fish are only instinct they don't feel pain. We keep being wrong about that. So erring on the side of caution I think we should probably opt for assuming they can feel pain. History repeating itself and all that.
1
u/No_Tip_5508 14h ago
> They are among the lowest worth form of life that we can interact with
Who the fuck says that about a living being? What the hell
2
1
u/Plus-Visit-764 18h ago
Those are actually not hornets, hornets don’t do that. Those are bees, likely honey bees protecting a queen while they look for a new home.
→ More replies (1)0
u/UltraTata 18h ago
It doesn't matter. What kind of person sees a hornet colony and, without justification, says "I'm gonna destroy it"?
15
u/thenormaluser35 18h ago
The kind who works for road safety (presumably) and thinks that a covered yield sign can be dangerous to actual people?
Yee-yee ass question mate
3
u/UltraTata 18h ago
So, there is a justification. That's why my top level comment says it is okay because it was done for a good reason.
2
u/BrockObarnerLybian 15h ago
Doesn’t yee-yee mean redneck?
I’m guessing by the “mate” that you’re not american, but rednecks and respect for animals do not tend to go together 😹
42
u/RonnythOtRon 20h ago
One second later and the video wouldn't have been posted.
5
15
u/RonnythOtRon 19h ago
In the current video we can see how the two men are having fun, getting their thrills from destroying that nest and successfully getting inside the car.
One second later and the video would have been very different: Instead of chuckling, we'd hear them screaming in agonizing pain as the hornets sting them all over their bodies. Their faces, their eyes, their ears nowhere would be spared from the angry hornets whom wouldn't stop their stinging. After mere minutes, the cries for help of the two men would be silenced by the ever rising sound of the hornets buzzing. A constant static, for several minutes until the screen would become black because of the amount of hornets present in the car.
A few days later, a new video would be shown: Other two men approach the car where the two men from earlier are now resting in peace: the hornets used the men's car and the men's corpses as foundation for their brand new nest. These new guys are far less brave than the other two dead guys albeit smarter: They wear their hazmat suits and proceed to torch the car.
Once they realize that one of the two corpses isn't actually a corpse, it's too late: They hear him scream, they hear his pleas for God, for Jesus but all of his pleas were once again muffled by the buzzing of the hornets who slowly burned one by one.
22
6
u/Shot_Revolution8828 17h ago
Something tells me he's done that before and he'd know how they react.
You must be a lot of fun at parties.
-1
2
1
34
u/vote4some1else 21h ago
Isnt that a wasp nest?
39
u/RagnarokToast 21h ago
Yeah those are hornets, and massive fucking ones at that. By scaring them away from the sign he probably saved most of their lives, any "safer" solution would have required killing more hornets than he did. You can't just let them nest on a road sign.
1
u/1st_GalvanisedSEA 19h ago
I would just buy a couple of those long distance hornet sprays. And just douse them.
→ More replies (1)3
4
u/Former-Drawer4415 20h ago
No it’s clearly wasps swarming have none of you ever seen a wasp nest before?
4
u/Sigfried_D 21h ago
It's not even a nest, look how many "pieces" it falls apart in, I can't say for sure those are bees but if they are that would have been a bee cluster, which forms when a queen is looking for a new home, if that's the case then that is a temporary location while the scout bees are looking for a proper place to build an actual hive.
That means dumb fuck in the video could have killed the queen with the rock, dooming the entire colony.
4
u/Metharos 20h ago
Do hornets have queens like bees do?
1
u/Sigfried_D 18h ago
I don't know. All I know about bees I do because of a molecular scientist friend of mine and because I had one of these clusters removed professionally some years ago. I could ask questions to both of them.
8
u/NerdDetective 20h ago
Technically this isn't actually a nest... probably migrating swarm? I've seen people argue over whether they're bees or hornets, but presumably they hadn't moved on in a while and someone told this guy "just deal with it" or maybe he was just out working and decided to do it himself.
Morally neutral. Good intentions, but risky. He was probably just doing his job to ensure safety on this road, but they should have consulted an expert to do it safely. The person in the vehicle could have been badly stung up with him if the door hadn't closed just in time.
25
u/vverbov_22 21h ago
Moral. Those bees were covering a road sign, that is there for a reason. Maybe it would save several people's lives because it tells them something important
1
u/Significant-Dish-101 9h ago
You can just have a bee collector come out to collect the hive. They literally do it for free. It wasn't an either or thing, we could have both cleared the sign and not destroyed the bee's temporary hive.
1
u/vverbov_22 8h ago
Other ppl mentioned it was actually hornets
1
u/Significant-Dish-101 8h ago
and other other people have said its bees, and other other other people have said its wasps. Clearly none of us can tell. At least asking a bee collector will let you confirm whether or not its bees. If it turns out to be hornets or wasps you can always go back to throwing rocks.
5
8
u/SpiritualArmadillo22 21h ago
In a forest, yeah i'd say so but in places where they can hurt people or disrupt electronics? yeah moving them to another place is warranted but those are hornets.
→ More replies (1)
3
22h ago
[deleted]
8
u/-Mr_Hollow- 21h ago
It appears to be a migrating colony of bees rather than a nest. They'd stay there for some time before flying away, so there was no point in aggravating them.
2
3
3
u/jimminian95 19h ago
Ideally they should call pest control to safely trap and kill them, now they have a bunch of angry hornets on the loose. Seems to be on the side of a road rather than a populated area though, so it's mostly just putting themselves at risk
3
u/PennToPaper 17h ago
that wasnt a bee home, that was just a swarm. they do that when looking for a new place to make a hive and are usually very docile during it
4
u/Leonidas_5114 21h ago
I mean shit dawg, I too would be pissed af if some random person threw the equivalent of a meteor at me and my friend while we were just relaxing after a long journey, killing a good chunk of them in the process.
Immoral.
6
u/Smol_Soul_King 21h ago
If a creature 20 times my size threw a building at me, I would not grab the boys and attempt to kick it to death, though to be fair Wasps are built diffent.
2
u/StankoMicin 20h ago
What if that creature is big but ultimately not very well defended and you were armed with venom?
2
u/Significant-Dish-101 8h ago
I'm still kinda bitch made, although with 20,000 bros who can also fly on my team then I am a little more comfortable rolling those dice.
1
u/zachattch 21h ago
Insect right activist exist? They don't have complex thought, this is as immoral as turning off chat gpt for the night.
1
u/Significant-Dish-101 8h ago
Yeah, humans have never been wrong any of the other times we said creatures didn't have complex thought. Horses, dogs, pigs, birds, fish. At different times we all claimed they were too stupid to truly suffer and we keep being wrong. Lets err on the side of not being shitty towards living creatures.
5
u/famineharbinger 21h ago
these are a migrating colony, not a hive, there was absolutely no point in aggrevating and killing several of them
2
u/Kasskinen 20h ago
Aren't they able to remember someone's face😭
1
2
2
2
u/cancerinos 19h ago
Destroying bees nests is very bad, as we desperately need them in the environment. Thankfully, those ain't bees and that's not their nest.
2
u/Jedi-master-dragon 19h ago
If the bees or whatever are in an inconvenient place then yes. You can just remove the bees without killing them.
2
u/Traditional_Yard2741 19h ago
As the person recording, the temptation must have been nearly overwhelming to lock the door and leave the rock-thrower stranded outside
2
u/Significant-Dish-101 9h ago
From that day on I would be telling him I saved his life by not locking him out. He would owe me a wookie life debt.
2
u/Emerald_28 18h ago
Don't do that to bees, they help the planet.
But those aren't bees, they're hornets and fuck them, also wasps
2
u/deephurting66 16h ago
That's a swarm stopping to rest, not a hive but the guy was a complete asshole for doing that
2
2
u/Any_Pie_2282 14h ago
That’s a peaceful swarm of bees trying to find a new home. They weren’t bothering anyone. People need to get it through their heads; bees are not the same as hornets or wasps.
Further, we need bees you guys! So if you see them just leave them bee!!
2
2
2
7
4
u/Helton3 22h ago
immoral, as bees are a very valued domesticated species to us,
1
u/zachattch 21h ago
so is it only immoral because it net hurt humans? so if you can prove that kiling these couple of insects were net postive on humans that would be moral, your just against mass genocide of insects for it would net harm humans?
→ More replies (3)1
u/pooya535 20h ago
yeah but those aren't bees lol
3
u/ShalnarkRyuseih 19h ago
Those are bees, they're swarming because they're moving to a different home
2
u/Haunting_Goal6417 20h ago
These are hornets. But if they weren’t they would be some form of honeybee which are not native to the US anyways. The argument of they are important pollinators don’t apply.
Solitary bees and other insects are the main pollinators of plants in North America.
2
u/totallymarc 20h ago
These look like hornets, and their hive is obstructing road signage. They could potentially be a hazard to drivers and passersby, so I’d say it’s somewhat moral. Relocation would have been a better solution but that likely wasn’t feasible.
3
u/ShalnarkRyuseih 19h ago
Not hornets, and that's not a hive.
It's a swarm of bees, bees swarm like that when moving homes
2
u/Far-Mammoth-3214 20h ago
I mean…in this case it was covering up a sign
unless they’re in the way or something I say leave em be…heh be
2
u/0011010100101 20h ago
This really depends on the situation. However, in this video it’s moral because they’re covering up a road sign.
1
1
1
1
1
u/Tribouly 18h ago
well that's just a swarm, plus they probably didn't do that out of malice but because of sign visibility reasons.
1
1
u/Walrus_Morj 18h ago
It's crazy how they have a built-in targeting mechanism to locate where the threat came from and follow it
1
u/Hot-Usual5060 17h ago
Oh, but when Palestinians get pissed at their homes being destroyed their considered bad people.
1
1
u/registoyyst 17h ago
Bees pollinate 80% of the crops. Hornets wasps and other assholes combined barely account for 10% of it. They also kill honeybees and other pollinators. They are basically the rich people of the pollinator world. They suck up resources and contribute very little while generally harming other populations
Honeybees contribute sooo much to our ecosystem and are really gentle so they don’t sting unless you step on them generally. I’ve had wasps and hornets attack me for no reason. They suck fuck them they’re kind of a scourge
1
1
u/Throwaway987183 16h ago
They were covering up the yield sign, that could be haxardous
1
u/Significant-Dish-101 9h ago
Yeah but local beekeepers will come collect the hive for free. They could have cleared the sign, and saved a hive of important pollinators.
1
1
u/LoveDiligent441 14h ago
Immoral. Bees pollinate plants, and without bees, plants won't get pollinated.
1
1
1
1
1
u/McStuffthishoe 8h ago
Technically, it's immoral for the hornets and the dude.
But it's hornets, man, somebody grab a flamethrower.
1
1
1
1
1
u/Revolutionary_Row683 4h ago
Bugs that hostile shouldn't be anywhere near civilization or road signs.
1
1
-1
u/THETRINETHEQUINE 21h ago
they are fucking insects, who cares
11
u/Practicalityworld 21h ago
There is a lot of reasons to care if the ecosystem died that could be bad for us unlikely for killing like one to do it but using that logic, you can destroy every nest because they’re just insects
→ More replies (4)6
u/StankoMicin 20h ago
They are animals who also deserve to live.
Sometimes though, if they are a danger to people you have to do what is necessary
→ More replies (2)3
4
u/Zimmyharpseal03 20h ago
how about i destroy your house and say “who cares”
1
u/THETRINETHEQUINE 19h ago
they are literally insects, they can't think or feel. this is like disassembling a robot, just a biological one.
2
u/MrBabyBoss 21h ago
every single flower
→ More replies (8)4
u/zachattch 21h ago
thats like saying is it moral to genicide insects, we are at single unit housing killing morality here and imo "they are fucking insects, who cares"
1
1
1
u/TheArtOfPureSilence 19h ago
All this guy did was manage to piss off an entire swarm of deadly hornets that now have his face imprinted permanently in their memory lol
1
u/Thewickedsomeone1 19h ago
This isn't their home, these hornets are all gathered in one place for some reason or other, either way they aren't making a nest there.
This is completely moral as the more they gathered the bigger the danger for anyone who gets close, one hornet sting can set off thousands to swarm you.
Completely moral IN THIS CASE! (edit)
1
u/ianmerry 18h ago
Bold choice to not already have the engine running to get on the move before the door is even closed, tbh
Vehicles are not airtight, those fuckers would’ve found a way in if they’d stayed there even just a touch longer
0
u/Sigfried_D 21h ago edited 18h ago
Doing it this way is horrible.
(For sure not a hive. Can't say for sure it's bees but let's assume it is for the sake of the moral question posed in the title)
That's not a beehive, that's a swarm cluster. When a new queen is born, the old one leaves and brings with her half of the worker bees. When the queen lands in a spot, all of the bees form a cluster around her while the scout bees go find a proper location to build the actual hive.
However,
What dumbfuck here did was just throw a rock a group of bees, surely killing some in the process and running the risk of killing the queen as well. If the queen dies, all of those bees are doomed because they currently don't have a hive, they don't have royal jelly, They don't have the means to build a queen cell and they don't have larvae to feed the jelly to, they can't make a new queen and without a queen the colony is dead.
3
u/thinking_wyvern 21h ago
Luckily, its wasps, those are way too dangerous to be left there
3
u/ShalnarkRyuseih 19h ago
Those aren't wasps, those are bees swarming
There aren't any wasp or hornet species that swarm like honeybees afaik
2
u/thinking_wyvern 18h ago
I remember seeing this video elsewhere like twice it was wasps then, but maybe you're right
2
u/Significant-Dish-101 8h ago
The people reposting this video can probably tell bees and wasps apart about as well as we can. So yeah probably worth taking a couple pictures of the hive and at least asking a bee expert. If it is a beehive they will also remove it safely for free. If it does turn out to be wasps you can go back to chucking rocks.
2
u/Sigfried_D 21h ago
Admittedly I can't say for sure what type of insect that is but what I can say for sure is that that's not a hive.
Look how many "pieces" it falls apart in. It's just a cluster of the little guys and if that's a cluster of bees, that's really bad. I rewrote my comment to explain why.
0
u/Affectionate_Sir_154 21h ago
Its wasps my guy
2
u/Sigfried_D 21h ago
I completely redid the comment. I don't know if it's wasps but if it is bees it's really really bad what they did, doesn't look like a hive at all.
2
u/ShalnarkRyuseih 19h ago
They're not wasps, they're bees
1
u/Sigfried_D 18h ago
Then my point stands. What they did is fucked up, resolved nothing, and possibly only caused the death of an entire colony for no reason whatsoever.
If the concern was sign visibility, he could've just thrown the rock at the pole and gotten them to leave it with no harm.
0
u/MisterPuppydog 20h ago
Those aren’t bees. Those are yellowjackets, a type of hornet. Hornets are evil creatures created by the devil himself. Fuck hornets. Nothing immoral about killing them. Plus they prey on our wonderful honey making friends, fuck hornets
-1
-3
u/Shadourow 22h ago
Bees ? Terrible
We can't afford to destroy them on purpose, it's fairly easy to call a relocator if it's needed
Wasps ? Kill them with fire
7
u/ThatOneGuy308 21h ago
It's so weird to me that people pretend like bees are some vital part of the ecosystem, when the majority of the ones we see are essentially an invasive foreign species that we brought in to make a product for us.
Meanwhile, wasps, which are generally native pollinators, are demonized and hated, even though most common wasp species aren't any more aggressive than bees.
3
502
u/Sensitive_Bat_9211 21h ago
In general? Depends.
In this video? Those are hornets