Zombee Watch!!!
August 21, 2012 7:58 AM   Subscribe

Zombee Watch -- A citizen science project

What are ZomBees?
They are honey bees that have been parasitized by the Zombie Fly Apocephalus borealis. Fly-parasitized honey bees become "ZomBees" showing the "zombie-like behavior" of leaving their hives at night on "a flight of the living dead."

Let's hope that A. Borealis never figures out how to parasitize humans!
posted by Chocolate Pickle (13 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 


Great. Now the poor bees are caught up in the zombie mania. Guys? Zombies are so last year.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:02 AM on August 21, 2012


weird. we just started thinking we might have zombees in our hive yesterday...I'd never heard of the zombee apocelypse before then
posted by supermedusa at 8:06 AM on August 21, 2012


Fantastic. One more pest on top of all the others (to wit: small hive beetles, wax moths, mites, various and sundry diseases, etc).
posted by jquinby at 8:13 AM on August 21, 2012


Zombie bees? THE ZOMBIES ARE AIRBORNE! WE'RE DOOMED!
posted by asnider at 8:14 AM on August 21, 2012


If you haven't had lunch yet, you might want to avoid the wikipedia article with it's description of egg laying, decapitation, and creepy pictures....
posted by HuronBob at 8:17 AM on August 21, 2012


You know what causes humans to leave their homes at night, travel long distances, and act all spaced out?

That's right, A. borealis.
posted by moonmilk at 8:32 AM on August 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


Zombie bees? What's next? Kind of think that Zombie Slugs would be both gross and scary. Or Zombie ants. Now that's something to worry about!
posted by Jeremy_Antley at 10:06 AM on August 21, 2012


There are zombie ants!
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:25 AM on August 21, 2012


Don't worry, we've got a species of Cordyceps that grows on the flies, transforming them into zombie-like automatons.
posted by monocyte at 11:26 AM on August 21, 2012


I don't believe this.

I certainly hope most of the other things I draw don't turn out to be real.
posted by mmrtnt at 12:21 PM on August 21, 2012


Coincidentally, this just popped up in the Beekeeping subreddit: Zombies Invade Google Campus.
posted by jquinby at 1:44 PM on August 21, 2012


Jeremy_Antley: "What's next? Kind of think that Zombie Slugs would be both gross and scary."

They're not slugs, they're snails.
posted by Pinback at 3:39 PM on August 21, 2012


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