Bumblebee queens can breathe underwater for up to a week, new research has found.
The remarkable discovery came about by chance, as ecologist Sabrina Rondeau noticed a frosty refrigerator dripped condensation into containers holding four queen bees.
She was amazed to find they were still alive.
The bumblebee queens were in diapause, which is a hibernation-like state over winter. As snow melts and heavy rain soaks the ground, it was assumed the bumblebees would drown.
But now scientists believe the bees can survive being submerged in the flooded ground for a week.
Professor Charles-Antoine Darveau, from the University of Ottawa, said: “This study started from a discussion with my co-author and postdoctoral researcher, Sabrina Rondeau, whose recent findings showed that these queens can survive submersion for over a week, which is extraordinary for a terrestrial insect.
“We wanted to understand how that’s even possible.”
The researchers recreated winter conditions in the lab, and the queen bees were placed in diapause for four to five months before being submerged underwater for eight days. Throughout the experiment, researchers monitored their metabolic rate and physiological changes.
They found that the queens continued exchanging gases and were breathing while maintaining a very low metabolic rate.
“The first key is metabolic depression,” Prof Darveau explained. “Their metabolism is already extremely low during diapause. That low energy demand makes survival possible.
“They’re not relying on just one strategy. They combine underwater gas exchange with anaerobic metabolism. That flexibility is what allows them to survive these extreme conditions.”
After eight days of submersion, the queens’ metabolic rate spiked dramatically for two to three days. It then returned to normal levels for about a week.
The scientists suggested that the bumblebees can breathe underwater thanks to a thin layer of air surrounding their bodies. The layer, known as a physical gill, is used by other insects to exchange oxygen and CO2 with the surrounding liquid.
“This study shows how resilient these pollinators are,” Prof Darveau said. “Understanding these mechanisms helps us predict how bumblebee populations might cope with increasingly frequent spring floods.”
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