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“Zombie” Fly Parasite Killing Honeybees

580 views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  SINC 
#1 ·
I know there was a thread on this subject a good while back, but the title did not contain the word bees, so my searches turned up nothing. It appears the problem has been discovered, but can they find a solution?

A heap of dead bees was supposed to become food for a newly captured praying mantis. Instead, the pile ended up revealing a previously unrecognized suspect in colony collapse disorder—a mysterious condition that for several years has been causing declines in U.S. honeybee populations, which are needed to pollinate many important crops. This new potential culprit is a bizarre—and potentially devastating—parasitic fly that has been taking over the bodies of honeybees (Apis mellifera) in Northern California.

John Hafernik, a biology professor at San Francisco State University, had collected some belly-up bees from the ground underneath lights around the University’s biology building. “But being an absent-minded professor,” he noted in a prepared statement, “I left them in a vial on my desk and forgot about them.” He soon got a shock. “The next time I looked at the vial, there were all these fly pupae surrounding the bees,” he said. A fly (Apocephalus borealis) had inserted its eggs into the bees, using their bodies as a home for its developing larvae. And the invaders had somehow led the bees from their hives to their deaths.
“Zombie” Fly Parasite Killing Honeybees | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network
 
#2 ·
Not a good sign for the fruit and vegetable growers of California. :(
 
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