• alekwithak@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      If there was a pet bumblebee industry there would also likely be a bumblebee cosmetic surgery industry like we see with other popular pets. I’m sure stinger removal would be a standard procedure for an indoor bee. Or they’d be bred out after so many years. Probably designer bee coats as well. I bet they’d bee pretty cute and cuddly.

      • Ada@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        22 hours ago

        Bumblebees are not aggressive, and even though they can sting without dying (unlike honeybees), they generally don’t. It would be like getting bitten by a Labrador. It’s possible, but something went wrong somewhere for things to end that way…

        • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          I’m by no means accusing any bees of violence beyond what is warranted, or any hypothetical pet bees of aggression, but as it is humanity clips dogs’ tails and ears and breeds them into monstrosities for no reason other than aesthetics, so why wouldn’t we do the same to any other hypothetical pet?

          • PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social
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            19 hours ago

            There are actually legitimate reasons to crop tails and ears in certain breeds. For instance, a lot of dogs with very floppy ears get ear infections so frequently and severely that they end up going deaf, and cropping them is a last-ditch effort to prevent that from continuing. I’ve also heard of at least one dog that broke his very skinny tail so many times from wagging it against furniture in happiness that he had to have it cropped.

    • daannii@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Okay but assuming all body parts would scale up the same.
      The stinger would be incredibly blunt.