Linking members of the same colony is actually standard. This is applicable for aphids as well as for ants, termites, etc. It's one of the exceptions to the one individual rule.

I am somewhat on the fence with this for aphids. I have found up to three species of aphid on a single flower before. So just because they are next to each other doesn't make them a colony. It can be pretty difficult to sort out which species is which when you have a jumbled mess of different forms.

In this case though, both aphids are pretty clearly the same species and on the same plant so linking is probably the way to go.

Even if they are different species it is still helpful to link multiple images of a colony for identification. For the most part it is just a different morph and not another species, but even if it is another species it is useful to know that relationship. The images can always be unlinked to separate to different pages if there are multiple species, but if you do not link the images of the same colony and I don't see the other images or realize that they are the same colony then an accurate identification might not happen. For this example, I am way better at identifying alates because that's where most of my experience is. So I wasn't too sure when I saw the apterous specimens, but when I saw the alates and realized they were from the same colony I was more confident in the ID. So rule of thumb for aphids, just link images depicting the same colony and they can be separated if necessary.

I agree!