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Dont feel sorry (28)
extramundi Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1875 W: 339 N: 4174] (12818)
This post is dedicated to Paul (PDP), although he will probably not see it now. I hope he recovers from his illness soon and join us again.

This is a bumblebee (Hymenoptera Aculeate I think) parasited by an acarus, probably a Deutonymph of Parasitellus talparum.

At first I felt sad for this bumblebee, it was very disturbed and trying to get rid of his parasites, I thought his had only hours of life ahead, but if you read this note you will discover that is a transportation to the tasty food, and can even be beneficial to the colonies.

THIS IS A SCALED IMAGE

Family Parasitidae
This family is distributed worldwide and includes about 400 species grouped in 2 subfamiles: Parasitinae and Pergamasinae. Parasitid mites are essentially predatory and feed upon other microarthropodes, including their eggs, and on nematodes. They live in moss, forest litter, soil, dung, rotting seaweed, decaying organic substances, caves, and nests of small mammals and insects. These mites disperse during the deutonymph stage, usually on insects of the orders Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. All species of the genus Parasitellus are obligatory associates of bumblebees (Bombus).

Genus Parasitellus
This genus includes 11 species that inhabit nests of bumblebees (Bombus). Occasionally they occur in beehives or borrows of small mammals. Deutonymphs are commonly phoretic on the adult bumblebees or cuckoo bumblebees. Since bumblebee colonies are annual and only young queens overwinter, mite deutonymphs are able to distinguish between queens and other castes (workers, males). Although the mites may disperse on all castes of bumblebees, they prefer queens, and never move from a queen to a male. Mites dispersing on workers and males may try to switch to queens later, either during copulation or on flowers, where bumblebees forage.
The species of Parasitellus, although only associated with bumblebees, are not specific to a particular species of host, with species often co-occurring in individual Bombus nests. The lack of host specificity in this group may be the result of host switching in flowers by cockoo bumblebees, or by queens that visit old nests with overwintered deutonymphs. In the nests of a single bumblebee species, mites can disperse due to queen supersedure or invasion of workers or queens from different nests.
The exact nature of the association between these mites and their bumblebee hosts is uncertain, although predatory behavior toward acarid mites and other parasitid mites was suggested. If these mites feed preferentially on potentially damaging acarid mites, they may be beneficial to colony health.

I took the info from THIS SITE.

Hope you like!

F8 - 1/1000 - Flash - Handheld - Manual mode.
PP. Crop, S&H, Saturation adjust, frame, resize, USM.
Altered Image #1

extramundi Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1875 W: 339 N: 4174] (12818)
More detail.
Edited by:extramundi Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1875 W: 339 N: 4174] (12818)
Although I could not get closer because of the shadow of my flash with the long objective on my Sony F-717, I scaled up to 200% of original size of image, and made a USM, I did not care about the the lack of quality but tryed to see more detail.