The Field Guide to Citizen Science by Darlene Cavalier

Author:Darlene Cavalier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2020-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

ZomBee Watch

The parasitic zombie fly (Apocephalus borealis) is laying its eggs in honeybees. This infection causes the “zombees” to behave like moths, leaving their hives at night on a flight of the living dead in search of lights, where they get stranded and die. The ZomBee Watch project scientists at San Francisco State University need your help to safely record and report where the zombie fly is infecting and killing bees. This project might take one day, if you don’t find any bees, or up to thirty days if you do find a bee. That’s typically how long it will take for a pesky zombie fly to emerge from its poor honeybee host. Note: This project is not recommended for anyone who has a bee or wasp allergy without careful consideration.

Location North America

Materials Light trap (optional)

Website Search “ZomBee Watch” on SciStarter or visit zombeewatch.org

Goal To help discover where zombie flies are infecting bees

Task Look for honeybees under your porch light in the morning, under street lights, or stranded on sidewalks. (Or, if you are a beekeeper, the most effective way to detect zombees is to set up a light trap near a hive—see the project website for details on making a simple, inexpensive light trap from hardware store materials.) To test for the presence of zombie fly infection, put any honeybees you collect in a container and observe them periodically. Infected honeybees will die, and in about a week brown pill-like fly pupae will emerge from the deceased bee; the adult flies will appear a few weeks later. Take pictures of the bees you collect. Submit your photos and observations directly through the SciStarter project page. Remember that not collecting any bees is also important data to report.

Outcomes Thanks to this project, scientists have confirmed the presence of the zombie fly parasite in many states and created the first-of-its-kind map of infected bees.

Why we like this If a zombie fly infection became widespread in a particular region or state, many bees would die and their hives would disappear. Because bees, which pollinate more than 80 percent of flowering plants, are already declining in population, the focus of this project is timely and important.

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