{"id":2190,"date":"2024-04-17T15:09:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T15:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/17\/bumblebee-species-can-survive-a-week-underwater-scientists-discover\/"},"modified":"2024-04-17T15:09:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T15:09:54","slug":"bumblebee-species-can-survive-a-week-underwater-scientists-discover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/17\/bumblebee-species-can-survive-a-week-underwater-scientists-discover\/","title":{"rendered":"Bumblebee species can survive a week underwater, scientists discover"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At least one bumblebee species can survive underwater, scientists have found after a mishap led to an experiment.<\/p>\n

A study by researchers in Canada<\/strong> has found when hibernating, common eastern bumblebee queens can survive being submerged in water for a week with no apparent issues.<\/p>\n

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Research began after Dr Sabrina Rondeau, of the University of Guelph in Ontario, made a mistake during a previous experiment.<\/p>\n

After storing a shipment of 300 hibernating common eastern bumblebee queens in a refrigerator, she later found condensation had filled four containers housing the insects.<\/p>\n

“I was sure that the queens were dead,” Dr Rondeau told The Globe and Mail, a Canadian news outlet.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

“I removed the water and – surprise, surprise – they were still alive.”<\/p>\n

In the follow-up study, Dr Rondeau and her colleague Professor Nigel Raine took 143 of the queens and housed them in individual plastic tubes containing damp topsoil, before putting them in a dark refrigerated unit to induce hibernation.<\/p>\n

After seeing the bees were still alive, the researchers kept 17 queens as controls and added cold water to the remaining 126 tubes.<\/p>\n

Of these, 63 queens were left floating on top of the water, and the other 63 were pushed under the water by a plunger.<\/p>\n

Both sets were then split into thirds, with one group left for eight hours, one left for 24 hours, and one left for seven days.<\/p>\n

The team found 81% of the queens that were submerged for seven days were still alive after eight weeks of artificial hibernation, compared with 88% of the control group.<\/p>\n

The researchers found survival of the queens remained consistently high across all experimental groups up to eight weeks post-treatment.<\/p>\n

However, the team added in the peer-reviewed journal Biology Letters that queens with a higher weight had a greater chance of survival.<\/p>\n

Dr Rondeau told The Globe and Mail: “One-third of all bumblebee species around the world are in decline right now, and so if we are able to discard flooding as being a potential threat to bees, then we can focus our attention on other threats that we know for sure are harming them.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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