Keeping To A Parasitic Theme,

as if bumble bees do not have enough to contend with,

that is us humans with all of our building and other habitat threatening practises, it appears they have an almost unique threat of their own, Conopid flies have always targeted bumble bees, their parasitic behaviour has become a serious problem, simply put, conopids have a bigger impact on bumble bee colonies than before, because the pollinators are now dealing with man-made threats as well, the parasitic fly that attacks them midair, injects them with eggs with hatch larvae which proceed to eat the pollinators from the inside before finally forcing them to dig their own graves, it sounds and is gruesome, it literally eats bumble bees from the inside, before somehow forcing them to land on the ground and dig a hole to die in, 

but the cycle doesn’t end with the host’s death, in the cozy protection of the bumble bee’s buried body, the larva develops into a pupa and the following spring an adult conopid fly bursts out of the shallow grave, ready to stalk and infect other bumble bees, gruesome indeed.