Queen bumblebees survive underwater for days: study

Queen bumblebees can surprisingly withstand days underwater, according to a study published yesterday, suggesting they could withstand increased floods brought on by climate change that threaten their winter hibernation burrows.

The survival of these pollinators that are crucial to ecosystems is "encouraging" amid worrying global trends of their declining populations, the study's lead author Sabrina Rondeau told AFP.

With global warming prompting more frequent and extreme floods in regions around the world, it poses "an unpredictable challenge for soil-dwelling species, particularly bees nesting or overwintering underground", co-author Nigel Raine of the University of Guelph said in a statement.

Rondeau said she first discovered queen bumblebees could withstand drowning by accident.

She had been studying the effect of pesticide residues in soil on queen bumblebees that burrow underground for the winter when water accidentally entered the tubes housing a few of the bees.

"I freaked out," said Rondeau, who had been conducting the experiment for her doctoral studies. "It was only a small proportion... so it was not that big of a deal, but I didn't want to lose those bees."

To her "shock", she said, they survived. "I've been studying bumblebees for a very long time. I've talked about it to a lot of people and no one knew that this was a possibility," she said.