As we know, I’m not a big fan of the whole zombies thing. I guess I just don’t get the fascination. It’s not that I don’t believe in zombies, for the proof they exist lies right here in Washington State.
And no, it’s not the smartphone-staring people that ride my bus. I am talking about real zombies. Well, to be exact, zombees.
It seems that there is an outbreak of zombie bees in the area. I still remember when the African bees, killer bees as they are called, were set to invade us. Remember that? They were supposed to kill us all back in the 1990s. They were going to swarm all over the nation, stinging everyone in their path.
Interbred with the European honeybees, these bees have a real attitude. They like to swarm, look for trouble, cop an attitude and attack en masse. In the process, they were supposed to wipe out all the ordinary, peace loving American bees who were mild and meeker.
So far, they’ve only made it to the southwest part of the country. I guess they like the warm weather there. I don’t think any African killer bees are going to enjoy Washington’s colder climes. And that is a good thing.
But now there are the zombees. And no, I’m not making this up. Would I ever do such a thing?
They were first discovered in Mark Hohn’s backyard in Kent. If you’re still a doubting Thomas, make a beeline over to ZombeeWatch.org and you will see that I am telling the truth.
It seems that these bees have a problem with flies. Yes, flies. There is a strain of parasitic fly that make the bees go crazy. When infected, the bees begin to lurch erratically and then they fall dead. They do a lot of other crazy things that are very un-bee like, too.
As you know, bees like to fly around during the day. At night, they huddle in their hive to stay warm. Zombees like to go out on the town once it gets dark. They are attracted to light bulbs as well. They flit and fly, buzz and bee, dance around the lights, then they start flying in jerky patterns and drop dead.
It’s already a big problem in California and Oregon. In the San Francisco bay area, 80% of the hives are infected with these parasitic flies and the bees are dropping like flies in the states south of here.
Here’s the kicker on this. The honeybees are the illegal aliens in this saga. That’s right. Our honeybees are not native to North America. They were brought over by the Europeans who were sweet on the bees and the honey they produced. The parasitic flies, known as Apocephalus borealis or more commonly as scuttle flies, are the real Americans in this zombee tale.
For a long time the scuttle flies were thought to only infect bumblebees and wasps, but now they seem to like to plant their little fly eggs in honeybees. The bees are consumed as food, from the inside out.
Now there’s fodder for a horror movie, eh?
What intrigues me about this whole story is that bees have their own fly problem. A bee is pretty small already, but they have an even smaller pest, one that has a ravenous desire to lay eggs inside so the baby flies can have a beelicious meal. Creepy.
I’ve obviously never seen any of these flies, as they must be almost invisible to our naked eyes. They’re obviously flitting around our world, looking for some innocent bee to lay eggs in, one who was innocently fluttering from one flower to another, doing what bees do best in their pre-zombie state.
And that is part of the problem, it seems. These flies are starting to interfere with the job honeybees were put on this earth to do. Rather than pollinating flowers, socking away pollen and making honey, they are being attacked and zombeefied.
As if pesticides, mites, viruses and the dreaded Colony Collapse Disorder haven’t caused enough problems in the bee world. You’ve heard about the CCD, haven’t you? All the bee scientists are abuzz about it.
Colony Collapse Disorder is what happens when all the worker bees mysteriously disappear from the hive. No one knows why. Some think it’s the mites in the hive or an unidentified disease. Others have blamed it on cellphones. No, I’m not kidding.
Anyway, the worker bees, the ones who mindlessly go about their task of collecting pollen, head off to their job one morning. When the siren sounds heralding quitting time, their boss takes a head count and lo and behold, some of the workers haven’t come back.
They’ve gone rogue. I suppose they could be off at happy hour somewhere, sucking down a little Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey in a seedy little bee bar. They’re making small talk with some other worker bees and collectively, they all decide to take a powder. They ditch their pollen behind the bar and head off on a little vacation, perhaps flying off to Beemuda to stay at a little B&B by the beach. One thing leads to another, they hook up with some exotic bee who’s the bees knees in the Caribbean and they never come back.
Instead, they’re hanging with their honey in the tropics, not even thinking about all their friends and responsibilities they left behind in that crowded hive in the Kent Valley. To make a little scratch, they do some pollination on the side, contract work for a hive whose productivity is down because some flies ate the workers from the inside out.
Yes, zombees are all over the Caribbean, didn’t you know that?
Back to back, belly to belly,
I ain’t collecting pollen, it doesn’t matter really,
Back to back, belly to belly,
It’s a Zombee Jamboree.
In the Emerald City, trying to get a bit of a buzz this morning,
– Robb