To add to the list of woes facing honeybees, researchers have discovered a parasite that burrows into drones, making them act rather like members of the living dead before they die. Scientists are calling the erratic-flying insects “zombie bees,” says The New York Times. For the past four years, John Hafernik, an entomologist at the University of San Francisco, has recruited volunteers across the country to help track infected swarms. More than 800 sightings spanning from California to Pennsylvania have been recorded in the ZomBee Watch online database.
The honeyebees owe their demise to the fly Apocephalus borealis, which plants her eggs into the bees abdomen using her needle-like ovipositor. “About a week later the larvae lurking within the abdomen wriggle into the bee’s thorax and start liquefying and devouring its wing muscles,” says The Times. “Then, like in the movie “Alien,” they burst through the bee’s body, erupting from the soft space between its head and shoulder area.” Hafernik doesn’t believe that the flies are a main culprit behind the dramatic decline in honeybee populations nationwide, but warns that they could well bring down an already vulnerable colony.