www.csua.org/u/v4i -> news.yahoo.com/zombie-fly-parasite-killing-honeybees-230200867.html
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 US 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." "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.
The team performed a genetic analysis of the fly and found that it is the same species that has previously been documented to parasitize bumblebee as well as paper wasp populations.
honeybee killer came as a surprise, given that "honeybees are among the best-studied insects of the world," Hafernik said. "We would expect that if this has been a long-term parasite of honeybees, we would have noticed." The team found evidence of the fly in 77 percent of the hives they sampled in the Bay Area of California, as well as in some hives in the state's agricultural Central Valley and in South Dakota.
") And with the discovery that this parasitic fly has been quietly killing bees in at least three areas, it might join the list of possible forces behind colony collapse disorder. bee_parasite_fly_larvae Parasitic fly larva emerging from a dead bee's neck. Courtesy of John Hafernik The parasitic fly lays eggs in a bee's abdomen. Several days later, the parasitized bee bumbles out of the hives often at night on a solo mission to nowhere. These bees often fly toward light and wind up unable to control their own bodies. After a bee dies, as many as 13 fly larvae crawl out from the bee's neck. The bees' behavior seems similar to that of ants that are parasitized and then decapitated from within by other fly larvae from the Apocephalus genus. "When we observed the bees for some time the ones that were alive we found that they walked in circles, often with no sense of direction," Andrew Core, a graduate student who works with Hafernik and a co-author on the new paper, said in a prepared statement, describing them as behaving "something like a zombie."
") Bees from affected hives and the parasitizing flies and their larvae curiously also contained genetic traces of Nosema ceranae, another parasite, as well as a virus that leads to deformed wings which had already been implicated in colony collapse disorder. This double infection suggests that the flies might even be spreading these additional hive-weakening factors. The research team plans to track bees with radio tags and video cameras to see whether infected bees are leaving the hive willingly or getting kicked out in the middle of the night and where the flies are finding the bees in which they lay their eggs. "We assume it's while the bees are out foraging because we don't see the flies hanging around the bee hives," Hafernik said. "But it's still a bit of a black hole in terms of where it's actually happening." Most of the parasitized bees found so far have been foraging worker bees, but even if other groups of bees within a hive are not becoming infected, a decline in the number of foragers in a hive could have a large impact on a hive as a whole. Models of colony dynamics suggest that "significant loss of foragers could cause rapid population decline and colony collapse," the researchers noted in their paper.
amateur beekeepers to collect vital samples of bees that leave the hive at night" with a light trap, for instance and keep them around for a week or so to observe for any signs of emerging larvae. Pinpointing the extent of this strange bee behavior could be key to stemming colony collapse disorder by possibly allowing keepers to isolate affected populations.
A keeper counts penguins at London Zoo in London, Wednesday, Jan. The annual count took place at the zoo Wednesday as keepers individually counted every animal and species at the zoo. The compulsory count is required as part of London Zoo's license.
Not so much the so called "zombie" behavior, but that a species is systematically destroying an ecosystem in such a brutal way. Never been a fan of flies, just one more reason not to like them.
Old Guy 3 hrs ago It is stories such as these that demonstrate that science can be a marvelous, ever-changing adventure. And some day, probably by accident, science will trip over an explanation of how people who leave reflex-like comments which indicate near-zero intelligence can muster the mental power to continue inhaling and exhaling.
Pompano Beach, Florida o 5 hrs ago This is a very big and far reaching discovery. If we do not find a way to save the bees, we humans will soon find ourselves alongside the dinosaurs as we go extinct. Our food supply is generated for the most part by the pollination of these bees.
the honey bee is responsible for pollinating vital human food sources,if the honey bee goes MAN KIND (republican,democrat and independent) isnot far behind. Last year I found several erratic bees in my yard, after dark. Next summer, I will easily and humanely capture those bees, give them a tiny source of honey, separate water and observe. If these parasitic flies hatch out, I will capture this on film. I have photographed aphids in the past with the right lenses.
Tyler, Texas o 3 hrs ago I had contacted several universities regarding this. We had set a large bag of corn meal out to treat our plants (which had fungus). The bees were eating the cornmeal to counteract the fungus. If you are in the bee collapse area, go to Lowes or any feed store and get the cornmeal in a 25 lb. Open it up and set it out on a wagon or in a flower bed. Also, check Earth Clinic's site and how they are using organic corn meal to cure stomach cancer.
San Diego, California o 3 hrs ago Several years ago a bunch of rich cattlemen in Texas got together and imported a fly species like that and released it because it is the only known predator of Fire Ants.
In this 2011 illustration, provided by Cornell University, scientists demonstrate how they have have created, a new invisibility technique that doesn't just cloak an object _ like in Harry Potter books and movies _ but masks an entire event. It is a time masker that works by briefly bending the speed of light around an event. Cornell scientists explain what they are talking about in this 2011 illustration that shows that if this technique is ever scaled up an art thief can walk into a museum and steal a painting without setting of laser beam alarms or even showing up on surveillance cameras or your eyes.
Now you see it, now you don't: Time cloak created SETH BORENSTEIN It's one thing to make an object invisible, like Harry Potter's mythical cloak. But scientists have made an entire event impossible to see.
In this 2011 illustration, provided by Cornell University, scientists demonstrate how they have have created, a new invisibility technique that doesn't just cloak an object _ like in Harry Potter books and movies _ but masks an entire event. It is a time masker that works by briefly bending the speed of light around an event. Cornell scientists explain what they are talking about in this 2011 illustration that shows that if this technique is ever scaled up an art thief can walk into a museum and steal a painting without setting of laser beam alarms or even showing up on surveillance cameras or your eyes. But scientists have made an entire event impossible to see.
NASA starts off new year with mission to the moon ALICIA CHANG The cruise to the moon took 3 months and covered 2 milli...
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