ArticleScientific reports2017
In search of evidence for the experience of pain in honeybees: A self-administration study.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Honeybee Sentience: Scientific Evidence and Implications for EU Animal Welfare Policy.Veterinary sciences · 2025Article
- Pain Research and Treatment: Policy Implications.Policy insights from the behavioral and brain sciences · 2024Article
- Behavioural Indicators of Pain and Suffering in Arthropods and Might Pain Bite Back?Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Review
- Is it time for insect researchers to consider their subjects' welfare?PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Animal sentience.Philosophy compass · 2022Article
- Article
- Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence suggests affective pain experience in octopus.iScience · 2021Article
- The Conscious Nematode: Exploring Hallmarks of Minimal Phenomenal Consciousness inInternational journal of psychological researchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite their common use as model organisms in scientific experiments, pain and suffering in insects remains controversial and poorly understood. Here we explore potential pain experience in honeybees (Apis mellifera) by testing the self-administration of an analgesic drug. Foragers were subjected to two different types of injuries: (i) a clip that applied continuous pressure to one leg and (ii) amputation of one tarsus. The bees were given a choice between two feeders, one offering pure sucrose solution, the other sucrose solution plus morphine. We found that sustained pinching had no effect on the amount of morphine consumed, and hence is unlikely to be experienced as painful. The amputated bees did not shift their relative preference towards the analgesic either, but consumed more morphine and more solution in total compared to intact controls. While our data do not provide evidence for the self-administration of morphine in response to pain, they suggest that injured bees increase their overall food intake, presumably to meet the increased energy requirements for an immune response caused by wounding. We conclude that further experiments are required to gain insights into potential pain-like states in honeybees and other insects.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.