Honey bees are managed in vast numbers for honey production and pollination services, raising welfare questions that are only beginning to receive systematic scientific attention.
Honey bee welfare occupies a philosophically contested space. Individual bee sentience is uncertain, but bees demonstrate pessimistic cognitive biases after stressful experiences - an indicator used to infer negative emotional states in vertebrates. At colony level, management practices including disease stress from Varroa, nutrition substitution with sugar syrup, transport stress, and queen manipulation affect colony health and likely individual welfare. The scale of managed bee populations means even low-probability welfare impacts aggregate to large numbers of potential welfare subjects. High-welfare beekeeping minimises unnecessary intervention, ensures nutritional adequacy, and prioritises disease prevention.