Parasites that turn victims into mindless, zombie-like slaves are fairly common in nature. There’s one called Apocephalus borealis that seems to devote its entire existence to being terrifying… for bees! And now, these ‘Zombie’ bees spread to the Northeast!
It’s sort of a combination of zombies and aliens mixed together. Similar to pigeons in Moscow, when bees are infected by this parasite, they fly around in a disoriented way, get attracted to light, and then fall down and wander around in a way that’s sort of reminiscent of zombies in the movies. It’s ‘the flight of the living dead.’
What causes this zombie behavior?
The effect starts with a fly called the Apocephalus borealis, which latches onto European honeybees — common across the United States — and lays eggs in the bees that eventually hatch and wreak havoc on their hosts. Once the eggs hatch, bees generally drop dead within the next five minutes.
According to a bee expert, these mutant “zombie bees” have now surfaced in the Northeast after first appearing on the West Coast in 2008.
Hopefuly there’s not necessarily any threat of a zombie (bee) invasion anytime soon, says the bee expert… Time will tell!
