A lab mistake revealed that hibernating bumblebees can survive absolutely submerged underwater for a minimum of seven days. This capacity suggests the embattled bugs are extra resilient than beforehand thought.

Sabrina Rondeau stumbled upon the invention whereas learning frequent japanese bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) within the lab on the College of Guelph in Canada. One week, she was checking on hibernating queen bees saved in a soil-filled tube “hibernacle” within the fridge when she realised that moisture had flooded the tube and plunged 4 of the bugs underwater. “I sort of freaked out,” she says. “I used to be positive the queens had been useless.”

To everyone’s shock, the bees wakened unscathed after she drained the water. Rondeau had a hunch there was an undiscovered capacity at play.

She systematically drowned 21 queens for seven days, and 17 of them – 81 per cent – made it via the floods. “That’s an especially excessive survival charge, and it’s not considerably totally different from [hibernation survival] when there’s no water,” says Rondeau. This achievement might be attributable to the truth that dormant bees drop their metabolism charge, which suggests they want little or no oxygen and may make do with the air saved inside their our bodies.

“Wow, the truth that you may submerge a terrestrial animal in water for per week and discover that it’s nonetheless alive is certainly very shocking,” says Lars Chittka at Queen Mary College of London.

Whereas male and employee bees die earlier than the winter, hibernation permits queen bees to climate the chilly for as much as eight months, then get up in spring to start out a brand new colony. The variety of queens that may survive is straight associated to future inhabitants progress.

Since these bees hibernate within the floor, excessive climate can destroy their protected house. “It’s a pinch level of their life cycle,” says Nigel Raine, Rondeau’s PhD supervisor on the College of Guelph in Canada. That could be a drawback, as about one-third of all bumblebee species are already declining. Discovering they’re bodily tailored to outlive a potential case of flooding is “actually, actually excellent news”, he says.