A parasitic fly is
creating what San
Francisco State
University researchers
are calling zombie
bees -- and the details
of infection are
straight out of a
horror movie.
San Francisco State
University professor
John Hafernik has
been observing the
peculiar behavior of
what he calls
“zombees” since
publishing a study on
them in 2012. His
research into the
phenomenon started
when he noticed a few
honey bees on the
SFSU campus walking
around in circles on
the ground. He
collected them in a
vial to feed to his pet
praying mantis but
realized shortly after
that the bees were
hosts to the parasitic
Phorid fly.
“I put them on my
desk and forgot about
them. When I came
back in a week or so
and looked at it, that
vial was filled with
just a large number of
these little brown fly
pupae,” Hafernik told
KQED. “And that’s
when I knew that
those bees were
parasitized.”
The tiny Phorid fly
injects its eggs into the
honey bee’s abdomen,
where they hatch and
begin to eat the bee
alive from the inside.
After death, the flies
then crawl out of the
bee's neck. The visual
is nauseating, but it’s
the time between
being parasitized and
perishing -- the
“zombee” period --
that Hafernik is trying
to understand.
“The bees that are
parasitized essentially
get bee insomnia. They
leave their hives at
night, which is a
really bad time for
honey bees to be
leaving their hives,”
Hafernik explained.
“Bees that fly away at
night basically are on
a flight of the living
dead. They’re not
coming back.”
From there, the
parasitized bees
congregate around a
light source only to fly
in senseless circles,
and right before
dying, begin
exhibiting more
curious behavior. Lead
author of the study,
Andrew Core,
explained that most
bees sit in one place
and curl up before
they die, but the
“zombees” begin to
lose control of their
legs.
“They kept stretching
them out and then
falling over,” Core
explained. “It really
painted a picture of
something like a
zombie.”
Hafernik reports that
nearly 80 percent of
the hives his team has
studied were currently
or previously infected
by the fly, a
compelling statistic as
researchers try to
determine the cause of
the honey bee’s mass
decline, a major threat
to agriculture reliant
on the bees’
pollination.
To expand the
research, Hafernik
launched ZomBee
Watch, a website he
calls a citizen science
project that enlists
anyone to become a
“zombee hunter” by
collecting bees they
find near lights and
uploading information
about their sample to
the website.

imagine this happening to humans....SPOOOOKKKKYYY!!!