Northern CA PPSR Projects 1

ZomBee Watch

• Organization Name

  San Francisco State University Department of Biology
• Project Website

  https://www.zombeewatch.org/
• Organization Website

  http://biology.sfsu.edu/
• Partners

  San Francisco State University Center for Computing for Life Sciences; Natural History Museum of LA County
• Contact Name

  N / A
• Contact Email

  N / A
• Contact Phone

  N / A
• Other Contact Information

  contact page: https://www.zombeewatch.org/contactus

• Project Purpose (taken from project materials)

  1. To determine where in North America the Zombie Fly Apocephalus borealis is parasitizing honey bees.
  2. To determine how often honey bees leave their hives at night, even if they are not parasitized by the Zombie Fly.
  3. To engage citizen scientists in making a significant contribution to knowledge about honey bees and to become better observers of nature.
• Participant Activities

  1) Collect honey bees that are under your porch light in the morning, under a street light or stranded on sidewalks.

  2) If you are a beekeeper, set up a light trap near one of your hives to detect ZomBees. It's easy to make a simple, inexpensive light trap from materials available at your local hardware store.

  To test for the presence of Zombie Fly infection all you need to do is put honey bees you collect in a container and observe them periodically. Infected honey bees give rise to brown pill-like fly pupae in about a week and to adult flies a few weeks later.

  1. Look for honey bees
  2. Construct a light trap and place it near an area where you have found stranded bees or, if you are a beekeeper, near your bee hive/s.
  3. Collect stranded honey bees
  4. Store samples
  5. Monitor samples
  6. Upload information about the honey bees, including photos and observations, to the website
  7. Keep sample for later confirmation
• Data Entry

  • Website
  • Collection Kits
  • Other
• Other Participant Activities

  N / A
• System Studied

  • Invertebrates
• Geographic Scope

  Statewide
• Region

  All (see 'geographic scope')
• Location

  Wherever honey bees are found - parasitized bees have been found in Northern California and South Dakota
• Location - Map

  1600 Holloway Ave. San Francisco, CA 94132
• Time Commitment

  • Other (see Other Information below)
• Volunteer Qualifications

  N / A
• Volunteer Training

  Online data collection tutorial: https://www.zombeewatch.org/tutorial

  Online information about parasitized honey bees and flies: https://www.zombeewatch.org/theproject#about_ZomBees_and_flies_

• Cost to Participant

  What You Will Need to Participate in ZomBee Watch:

  • Resealable containers to isolate samples of honey bees that you collect. You will need one container per sample location.
  • Tweezers or forceps to handle honey bees.
  • A pen and adhesive labels to label containers with locality and date information.
  • A notebook to take notes about your sample.
  • A smart phone or digital camera to take photos of bees, Zombie Fly pupae and adult flies.
  • A commitment to provide accurate data and to handle honey bees carefully and safely.
• How will the findings be used?

  Data is presented on an online map, https://www.zombeewatch.org/map/public, and used by researchers at the sponsoring institutions. Publications about ZomBees are posted on the project website.

• Other Information

  In California, parasitism begins to increase in early June and peaks in the fall and early winter months. Most records of the fly from other parts of North America (such as the Midwest and Northeast) are from late May to September, which is the most likely time that parasitism will be observed by citizen scientists in those areas.

• Photo

  N / A
• last update:

  N / A