Invasion of the zombie bees: Parasitic infection that causes
insects to lurch around until they die spreading across the US
Infected animals found in Washington for
the first time as fears grow invasion is spreading
Infected insects previously found in California
The infection is as grim as it sounds: 'Zombie bees' have a
parasite that causes them to fly at night and lurch around erratically until
they die.
And experts say the condition has crept into Washington
State .
'I joke with my kids that the zombie apocalypse is starting
at my house,' said Mark
Hohn , a novice beekeeper who
spotted the infected insects at his suburban Seattle home.
Zombie invasion: Mark Hohn ,
a novice beekeeper in Washington ,
holds up a plastic bag with a dead zombie bee and pupae - two at each end of
the bag.
Hohn returned from vacation a few weeks ago to find many of
his bees either dead or flying in jerky patterns and then flopping on the
floor.
He remembered hearing about zombie bees, so he collected
several of the corpses and popped them into a plastic bag. About a week later,
the Kent man had evidence his bees were infected: the pupae of parasitic flies.
'Curiosity got the better of me,' Hohn said.
The zombie bees were the first to be confirmed in Washington
State , The Seattle Times
reported.
Hafernik now uses a website to recruit citizen scientists
like Hohn to track the infection across the country.
Observers also have found zombie bees in Oregon
and South Dakota .
The infection is another threat to bees that are needed to
pollinate crops.
Hives have been failing in recent years due to a mysterious
ailment called colony collapse disorder, in which all the adult honey bees in a
colony suddenly die.
Life cycle of the zombie fly: The parasite attacks the
creature, in a destructive circle of life
The life cycle of the fly that infects zombie bees is
reminiscent of the movie 'Alien,' the newspaper reported.
A small adult female lands on the back of a honeybee and
injects eggs into the bee's abdomen.
The eggs hatch into maggots.
'They basically eat the insides out of the bee,' Hafernik
said.
After consuming their host, the maggots pupate, forming a
hard outer shell that looks like a fat, brown grain of rice.
That's what Hohn found in the plastic bag with the dead
bees.
Adult flies emerge in three to four weeks.
There's no evidence yet that the parasitic fly is a major
player in the bees' decline, but it does seem the pest is targeting new hosts,
said Steve Sheppard , chairman of the entomology
department at Washington
State University .
'It may occur a lot more widely than we think,' he said.
That's what Hafernik hopes to find out with his website,
zombeewatch.org.
The site offers simple instructions for collecting suspect
bees, watching for signs of parasites and reporting the results.
Once more people start looking, the number of sightings will
probably climb, Hohn said.
Let us hope and pray that this type of fly is not imported into Europe and the UK by some-one who imports bees illegally.
It sounds as if it is confined to a limited area, let us hope that the Americans come up with cure before it gets too widespread!
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