Deadly parasite turns Bay Area honeybees into zombie slaves

rnewste · January 3, 2012

This in today's San Jose Mercury News. Now, another thing to worry about in California. Over time, this could be quite devastating to the entire agri-business out here.

"""San Francisco biologists have made a macabre discovery that might help explain the mysterious crash of honey bee populations: parasites that turn bees into zombies.

Infected bees go mad, abandoning their hive in a suicidal rush toward bright lights, according to a new study by San Francisco State University researchers.

"It's the flight of the living dead," said lead investigator and biology professor John Hafernik, also president of the California Academy of Sciences.

The parasite, a tiny fly, has been found in bees from three-quarters of the 31 surveyed hives in the Bay Area -- essentially, everywhere except Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

In a plot line similar to a George Romero horror film, the fly deposits its eggs into the bee's abdomen, then takes over. The hapless bees walk around in circles, with no apparent sense of direction. Some are unable to even stand on their legs.

"They kept stretching them out and then falling over," Hafernik said. "It really painted a picture of something like a zombie."

The bees' demise may contribute to what's known as "Colony Collapse Disorder," a phenomenon of failing honey bee hives around the United States -- and a great concern in the agricultural community, which depends on these pollinators.

Despite six years of intense research, scientists have been unable to find a single reason for colony collapse. Increasingly, they suspect that several factors, including
viruses and fungus, may be to blame.

"This is one more piece in the puzzle," said researcher and SFSU graduate student Jonathan Ivers. "But no one has come up with a coherent picture of what the puzzle even looks like."

The stakes are high, because honeybees are the primary pollinator of most nuts, vegetables and fruits. California's $1 billion-a-year almond business, for instance, is entirely dependent on the honey bees.

"The agricultural economy of California would be devastated if honey bees disappeared," Ivers said.

This creepy parasitic parable started in an unlikely place: a desk at SFSU. Three years ago, Hafernik returned from a field trip with a hungry praying mantis, so he scrounged for insects for it to eat. He found some bees under the light fixtures outside his classroom at Hensill Hall, and stuck them in a vial.

"But being an absent-minded professor," he joked, "I left them in a vial on my desk and forgot about them."

When he looked at the vial again -- a week or so later -- there was a startling sight: the dead bees were surrounded by small brown fly pupae.

"I knew that was unusual," he said. "I knew that a parasitic fly was feeding on them."

The fly's identity -- Apocephalus borealis -- was revealed through a DNA test. The same fly is known to infect wasps and bumblebees.

Ivers and fellow grad student Andrew Core gained permission from Bay Area beekeepers to set up traps at the hives, then caught 20 to 50 so-called "worker bees" en route to find food.

Infected bees were found in San Francisco, Oakland, Orinda, Walnut Creek, Concord, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Benicia, San Rafael, Mill Valley and Larkspur. They were not found in hives in Los Gatos, Saratoga, San Jose or Mount Hamilton.

The parasitic flies even engage in mind control. Somehow they're able to hijack the bee's normal daytime behavior, turning it into a nocturnal creature. Seven days after death, little larvae emerge from the bee.

The casualties are hard on a hive in two different ways. Not only does it lose important workers -- but when these foragers are gone, younger bees inside the hive are forced to take their place. The entire labor structure of the hive goes awry.

"As you lose more and more workers, there's a tipping point, which could lead to collapse," he said.

Bees from the infected hives are often infected with a virus and a fungus -- suggesting the fly might be a vector for these pathogens.

There are other gruesome examples in the insect world of exploitation.

An Asian wasp stings a cockroach in the brain, and injects venom that controls where the roach walks. Then it lays its egg on the roach and its larvae eat it alive.

And there's an Amazonian nematode that, once inside an ant, turns the insect's abdomen the same bright hue as a tasty berry. The ant is eaten by birds, who spread baby nematodes through their poop.

While SFSU researchers are far from discovering a treatment for bees, the next step in is to expand their geographic search for infected hives.

Already, Hafernik has noticed a colony in the walls of his San Francisco house. "At night, they bounce against the windows while my wife and I are at the dinner table," he said brightly.
And they'll deploy a range of identification tools to better understand the freeloading fly. Next spring, they will glue tiny radio-frequency devices -- smaller than the head of a pin -- to the backs of bees, then track their travels. Once sick, do they re-enter the hive, infecting others?

"We don't know how big a player this is" in collapsing colonies, he said. "It could be a really important one." """

Raybo

Tania · January 3, 2012

So sad to see this happening to the bees. I hope soon there will be some good way of controlling the parasitic flies!

**carolyn137** · January 3, 2012

Here in upstate NY the biologists were pretty sure that Colony Collapse here was due to both mites and a fungus, I don't remember the name of the latter.

So for quite a few years the bee population was way down. But there were survivors and in the past couple of years the population is back up to almost where it was before, so say the newspaper articles.

rnewste · January 3, 2012

Carolyn,

In California, they are attributing the issue to the Parasitic Phorid Fly (Apocephalus Borealis). I've got the complete 9 page .pdf document, if anyone wants to read the assessment, PM me.

Raybo

Neohippie · January 3, 2012

One of my professors at UT studied phorid flies that parasitize fire ants. He was looking into using them as a method to control them. I'm not surprised there's a kind of phorid fly that also parasitizes bees (ants, wasps, and bees are related to each other).

There are also a lot of parasitic wasps out there. You may have heard of the kind that attack tomato hornworms.

Parasites are actually very fascinating... in a morbid sort of way. It's kind of like the movie "Alien". (That movie traumatized me as a kid!

)

Hopefully the bees' human allies can figure out how to protect them from this threat.

**carolyn137** · January 4, 2012

Quote:

Originally Posted by rnewste

Carolyn,

In California, they are attributing the issue to the Parasitic Phorid Fly (Apocephalus Borealis). I've got the complete 9 page .pdf document, if anyone wants to read the assessment, PM me.

Raybo

Ray, I Did read the article before I posted what I did just to indicate that there are different thoughts about Colony Collapse in differenct parts of the country.

Here they tried miticides and various antifungals with no luck. So it was those bees that showed resistance to the mites and fungi that then lived, reproduced and it's been a slow climb upwards to regain the original population.

Here where I live in the NE it's apple country and bees are needed for that huge commercial enterprise as well, of course for home vegetables as well. But honey bees are not the main insect pollinators for everything. For instance it's sweat bees ( Halictids) that are the main ones for tomatoes.

Within a population of the same organism, and now I'm going to mention we humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, but it's applicable to any population of a single organism, there is heterogeneity of genes such that some will be able to live after being attacked by a pathogen, and some will die, aside from any other variables such as weather, nutrition, etc.

Those folks who survived the plague in Europe, when 30-60% of the population died, are the ancestors we came from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

So all is not lost with your new interesting information about this new fly b'c there will be survivros and maybe they'll even be able to find a predator species that can destroy the fly involved.

We also have a horrible problem here in the NE with Little Brown Bats that have been decimated by a fungus, now Ided, but no fungicides have worked and those bats that survived are now reproducing and building up populations, and some they even moved from their original caves to new ones.

OtterJon · January 4, 2012

That's just terrible...poor bees.

I know the apiary clubs and organizations here in Northern Michigan got hit hard last year from Colony collapse. They were discussing it on the local radio a few weeks back.

Honeybees always get bad things happening to them..like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fTrSOFyfxs&feature=fvsr

Jon

FiguredOut · February 4, 2012

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis species are known to attack ants. They actually cause the insect to find the highest point on a plant before it dies. Very interesting.

Dewayne mater · February 5, 2012

Howard Garrett, a/k/a the Dirt Doctor ran an article recently saying that new pesticides that was sold commercially was largely responsible for the bee colony collapse that has been going on. They are neonicotinoids. Two prominent examples, Imidacloprid and Clothianidin. http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Bee-Very-A...ter_vq4615.htm

Not sure we know for certain all the causes, but, this would make a lot of sense.

Dewayne Mater

January 3, 2012	#1
rnewste Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Campbell, CA Posts: 4,064	Deadly parasite turns Bay Area honeybees into zombie slaves This in today's San Jose Mercury News. Now, another thing to worry about in California. Over time, this could be quite devastating to the entire agri-business out here. """San Francisco biologists have made a macabre discovery that might help explain the mysterious crash of honey bee populations: parasites that turn bees into zombies. Infected bees go mad, abandoning their hive in a suicidal rush toward bright lights, according to a new study by San Francisco State University researchers. "It's the flight of the living dead," said lead investigator and biology professor John Hafernik, also president of the California Academy of Sciences. The parasite, a tiny fly, has been found in bees from three-quarters of the 31 surveyed hives in the Bay Area -- essentially, everywhere except Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. In a plot line similar to a George Romero horror film, the fly deposits its eggs into the bee's abdomen, then takes over. The hapless bees walk around in circles, with no apparent sense of direction. Some are unable to even stand on their legs. "They kept stretching them out and then falling over," Hafernik said. "It really painted a picture of something like a zombie." The bees' demise may contribute to what's known as "Colony Collapse Disorder," a phenomenon of failing honey bee hives around the United States -- and a great concern in the agricultural community, which depends on these pollinators. Despite six years of intense research, scientists have been unable to find a single reason for colony collapse. Increasingly, they suspect that several factors, including viruses and fungus, may be to blame. "This is one more piece in the puzzle," said researcher and SFSU graduate student Jonathan Ivers. "But no one has come up with a coherent picture of what the puzzle even looks like." The stakes are high, because honeybees are the primary pollinator of most nuts, vegetables and fruits. California's $1 billion-a-year almond business, for instance, is entirely dependent on the honey bees. "The agricultural economy of California would be devastated if honey bees disappeared," Ivers said. This creepy parasitic parable started in an unlikely place: a desk at SFSU. Three years ago, Hafernik returned from a field trip with a hungry praying mantis, so he scrounged for insects for it to eat. He found some bees under the light fixtures outside his classroom at Hensill Hall, and stuck them in a vial. "But being an absent-minded professor," he joked, "I left them in a vial on my desk and forgot about them." When he looked at the vial again -- a week or so later -- there was a startling sight: the dead bees were surrounded by small brown fly pupae. "I knew that was unusual," he said. "I knew that a parasitic fly was feeding on them." The fly's identity -- Apocephalus borealis -- was revealed through a DNA test. The same fly is known to infect wasps and bumblebees. Ivers and fellow grad student Andrew Core gained permission from Bay Area beekeepers to set up traps at the hives, then caught 20 to 50 so-called "worker bees" en route to find food. Infected bees were found in San Francisco, Oakland, Orinda, Walnut Creek, Concord, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Benicia, San Rafael, Mill Valley and Larkspur. They were not found in hives in Los Gatos, Saratoga, San Jose or Mount Hamilton. The parasitic flies even engage in mind control. Somehow they're able to hijack the bee's normal daytime behavior, turning it into a nocturnal creature. Seven days after death, little larvae emerge from the bee. The casualties are hard on a hive in two different ways. Not only does it lose important workers -- but when these foragers are gone, younger bees inside the hive are forced to take their place. The entire labor structure of the hive goes awry. "As you lose more and more workers, there's a tipping point, which could lead to collapse," he said. Bees from the infected hives are often infected with a virus and a fungus -- suggesting the fly might be a vector for these pathogens. There are other gruesome examples in the insect world of exploitation. An Asian wasp stings a cockroach in the brain, and injects venom that controls where the roach walks. Then it lays its egg on the roach and its larvae eat it alive. And there's an Amazonian nematode that, once inside an ant, turns the insect's abdomen the same bright hue as a tasty berry. The ant is eaten by birds, who spread baby nematodes through their poop. While SFSU researchers are far from discovering a treatment for bees, the next step in is to expand their geographic search for infected hives. Already, Hafernik has noticed a colony in the walls of his San Francisco house. "At night, they bounce against the windows while my wife and I are at the dinner table," he said brightly. And they'll deploy a range of identification tools to better understand the freeloading fly. Next spring, they will glue tiny radio-frequency devices -- smaller than the head of a pin -- to the backs of bees, then track their travels. Once sick, do they re-enter the hive, infecting others? "We don't know how big a player this is" in collapsing colonies, he said. "It could be a really important one." """ Raybo

January 3, 2012	#2
Tania Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Anmore, BC, Canada Posts: 3,970	So sad to see this happening to the bees. I hope soon there will be some good way of controlling the parasitic flies! __________________ Tatiana's TOMATObase

January 3, 2012	#3
carolyn137 Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a Posts: 21,169	Here in upstate NY the biologists were pretty sure that Colony Collapse here was due to both mites and a fungus, I don't remember the name of the latter. So for quite a few years the bee population was way down. But there were survivors and in the past couple of years the population is back up to almost where it was before, so say the newspaper articles. __________________ Carolyn

January 4, 2012	#7
OtterJon Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Michigan Posts: 218	That's just terrible...poor bees. I know the apiary clubs and organizations here in Northern Michigan got hit hard last year from Colony collapse. They were discussing it on the local radio a few weeks back. Honeybees always get bad things happening to them..like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fTrSOFyfxs&feature=fvsr Jon __________________ "The truth is a friend of mine..Sometimes he ain't too kind, but he always gets it right"

January 3, 2012	#5
Neohippie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: San Marcos, Texas Posts: 77	One of my professors at UT studied phorid flies that parasitize fire ants. He was looking into using them as a method to control them. I'm not surprised there's a kind of phorid fly that also parasitizes bees (ants, wasps, and bees are related to each other). There are also a lot of parasitic wasps out there. You may have heard of the kind that attack tomato hornworms. Parasites are actually very fascinating... in a morbid sort of way. It's kind of like the movie "Alien". (That movie traumatized me as a kid! ) Hopefully the bees' human allies can figure out how to protect them from this threat.

February 4, 2012	#8
FiguredOut Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: NJ Posts: 17	Ophiocordyceps unilateralis species are known to attack ants. They actually cause the insect to find the highest point on a plant before it dies. Very interesting.

February 5, 2012	#9
Dewayne mater Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2008 Location: DFW, Texas Posts: 1,212	Howard Garrett, a/k/a the Dirt Doctor ran an article recently saying that new pesticides that was sold commercially was largely responsible for the bee colony collapse that has been going on. They are neonicotinoids. Two prominent examples, Imidacloprid and Clothianidin. http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Bee-Very-A...ter_vq4615.htm Not sure we know for certain all the causes, but, this would make a lot of sense. Dewayne Mater