Zombie bees have staggered into Canada, Nanaimo area
Like something out of an entomological horror movie, experts have identified the first case in Canada of honeybees being attacked by parasitizing flies that turn the insects into zombies before killing them.
“Zombie bees” were confirmed outside of Nanaimo, B.C., in June, when first-time beekeeper Sarah Wallbank noticed her insects were acting strangely. She trapped the bees, which were staggering around light at night and appeared disoriented, and within days, witnessed pupae emerging from them.
“At least 42 larvae had crawled out of the bee corpses,” Wallbank said. “Then, out of those 42 pupae, 23 flies emerged.”
After researching symptoms online, Wallbank sent photographic samples to ZomBee Watch, a citizen science project that tracks infected bees in North America. In July, she was told her honeybees had been parasitized by the phorid fly.
“This is the first time we’ve known of it happening in Canada,” said John Hafernik, a professor at San Francisco State University and member of the ZomBee Watch team.
“We’ve known that it has affected bumblebees and probably yellow jacket wasps as well ... and it’s now affecting honeybees.”
Hafernik said phorid flies are native to Canada, and have been around for thousands of years.
“We’re trying to find out how big of a threat is this to the honeybee,” he said. “We know that if a honeybee is infected by the fly, it’s very likely to die.”
Brian Brown, head of the Natural History Museum’s entomology department in Los Angeles County, said phorids attack by laying eggs inside bees, causing larvae to grow by feeding on a bee’s body tissue. After the larvae pupates, it turns into an adult fly.
When a bee is infected with the parasite, Brown said, its behaviour becomes odd, and zombielike.
Hafernik said: “If a large enough number of honeybees get infected, that could cause a hive to either fail or become less productive.”