 |
| "ZZZZZ" | |
|---|---|
| The Outer Limits episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 18 |
| Directed by | John Brahm |
| Written by | Meyer Dolinsky |
| Cinematography by | Conrad Hall |
| Production code | 21 |
| Original air date | January 27, 1964 |
| Guest appearances | |
"ZZZZZ" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on January 27, 1964, during the first season.
A queen bee takes on human form, and plans to mate with a human male.
Ben Fields, married to Francesca Fields, is an entomologist seeking a lab assistant. Regina, a giant mutant queen bee in human form, who is searching for a human mate to evolve her species, takes the job. Regina is accepted into their household after fabricating a story of accused infidelity by her 'former' employer's spouse, whom she chose to keep anonymous to prevent anyone from knowing about the alleged affair. When the subject of drones comes up, Regina is oddly enthusiastic about the beauty of the bee's mating ritual and the willingness of the drones to die in the process. Suspicious of her background, while being treated with disrespect and contempt by Regina, Francesca discovers Regina has lied; as well as seeing her abruptly morphing into a giant bee while apparently drawing nectar from a flower in their garden. At one point, due to the metabolic changes while in human form, Regina experiences spasms of pain, and is examined and treated by the Fields' personal physician, who reveals to them his belief that Regina may not be who she appears to be. Later, with her knowledge of Regina's attempts to seduce her husband, Francesca confronts her, whereupon Regina unleashes the bees of her hive kept in Ben's laboratory, attacking and then stinging Francesca to death. Ben, grief-stricken, accuses Regina of murdering his wife. Now understanding and horrified by her true identity and purpose, he forcefully rejects her advances, and gives her his view of the human mating ritual, in contrast to her earlier statements. In an ensuing struggle, she falls from his bedroom's second story balcony to the ground below. She is not killed, transforms back into a queen bee, then flies off.
"ZZZZZ" was shot entirely on a massive interior set, including the two-story mockup of Ben's house and the full garden constructed by Jack Poplin and his team on Soundstage#4 at KTTV. (source - The Outer Limits:The Official Companion (1986), page 197.)
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a novel published on 27 December 1871 by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. There she finds that, just like a reflection, everything is reversed, including logic.
A honey bee is a eusocial flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America, North America, and Australia.
The honey bee life cycle, here referring exclusively to the domesticated Western honey bee, depends greatly on their social structure.
A queen bee is typically an adult, mated female (gyne) that lives in a colony or hive of honey bees. With fully developed reproductive organs, the queen is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature. There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will usually follow and fiercely protect her.
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Apis nigrocincta is a species of honey bee that inhabits the Philippine island of Mindanao as well as the Indonesian islands of Sangihe and Sulawesi. The species is known to have queens with the highest mating frequencies of any species of the tribe Apini.
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Apis dorsata, the rock bee or giant honey bee, is a honey bee of South and Southeast Asia. They are typically around 17–20 mm (0.7–0.8 in) long and nests are mainly built in exposed places far off the ground, like on tree limbs, under cliff overhangs, and under buildings. These social bees are known for their aggressive defense strategies and vicious behavior when disturbed. Though not domesticated, indigenous peoples have traditionally used this species as a source of honey and beeswax, a practice known as honey hunting.
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Apis cerana, the eastern honey bee, Asiatic honey bee or Asian honey bee, is a species of honey bee native to South, Southeast and East Asia. This species is the sister species of Apis koschevnikovi and both are in the same subgenus as the western (European) honey bee, Apis mellifera. A. cerana is known to live sympatrically along with Apis koschevnikovi within the same geographic location. Apis cerana colonies are known for building nests consisting of multiple combs in cavities containing a small entrance, presumably for defense against invasion by individuals of another nest. The diet of this honey bee species consists mostly of pollen and nectar, or honey. Moreover, Apis cerana is known for its highly social behavior, reflective of its classification as a type of honey bee.
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