<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This article really freaked me outwardly:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/10/11/tiny-flies-create-zombie-honeybees-that-take-night-flights-then-die.html?intcmp=hpbt4">http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/10/11/tiny-flies-create-zombie-honeybees-that-take-night-flights-then-die.html?intcmp=hpbt4</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nearly 40 years ago, I got a call just as I was going to bed. A beekeeper friend told me a bee truck had overturned on an entrance ramp just south of Jacksonville Florida and if I could be ready to roll in 15 minutes, I could earn 5 bucks an hour from the time we left my house to the minute I returned. This being nearly twice the minimum wage at the time, and about 3 hrs of that would be sitting in a truck, my response was: I will be out front in my bee suit by the time you get here.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Bees rely on their vision to fly. We set up some floodlights so we could see what we were doing, cleaning up wrecked hives and such, but the bees never took flight, even toward the floodlight. They know the difference between a bright light and the sun. Bees will not fly at night, but they will crawl and they damn will sting, which was a bad thing: they walked along the beekeepers suit until they could find any entry. I made 5 bucks an hour that night but only 2 bucks per sting.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Now there is a parasite that causes bees to fly at night, and to fly in circles around a lightbulb as moths and other bugs do. That is crazy! And a clue: what mental circuitry are moths missing that bees have, until some parasitic larva devours that piece of brain or somehow disables it? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Furthermore: if this larva or parasite somehow causes bees to fly at night, that would offer a possible contribution to colony collapse disorder. Bees navigate based on sight. If a parasite wrecks that part of their brain (or whatever bees have analogous to our brains) perhaps they take off at dusk, can’t see, get lost, fly until they are forced to land by exhaustion, perish from exposure, remaining colony starves from loss of worker bees.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike <o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>