Lab bees submerged in water seemed doomed? Not quite, says the beekeeper.
Sabrina Rondeau, a researcher at the University of Guelph in Canada, found herself in a surprising situation when she checked on the hibernation tubes filled with soil in the lab fridge. Water had flooded the tubes, and four queen bees were submerged.
"I was certain the queens were dead," Rondeau recalled, but after draining the water, the bees revived unharmed.
These "resurrected" queen bees piqued Rondeau's curiosity. She wondered if wild queen bees hibernating underground could withstand flooding. In a recent study published in Biology Letters, Rondeau and her colleagues found that hibernating queen bees can survive being completely submerged in water for at least seven days. This suggests that insects in distress may be more resilient than previously thought.
It's known that male bees and worker bees die before winter, while hibernating queen bees endure the cold season, waking up in spring to establish new colonies. Therefore, the survival of queen bees greatly impacts the population.
In the study, Rondeau placed 143 queen bees in tubes filled with soil and induced artificial hibernation for seven days in a refrigeration unit. Then, the researchers flooded the tubes, submerging the queen bees completely or allowing them to float naturally on the water's surface, for durations ranging from 8 hours to 7 days. Another 17 queen bees served as a control group.
After varying periods of submersion, the researchers transferred the queen bees to new hibernation tubes and refrigerated them for 8 weeks. The results showed consistently high survival rates of the queen bees (89.5±6.4%), with no significant differences in survival rates under different submersion conditions and durations.
"The survival rate of queen bees after submersion was already quite high, comparable to their survival rate under normal hibernation conditions," Rondeau said. This may be because the metabolic rate of hibernating queen bees decreases, allowing them to survive on minimal oxygen. Therefore, they can utilize stored air within their bodies to survive after being submerged.
