Common eastern bumblebee queens’ ability while hibernating could help it endure flooding, scientists say

Researchers conducted an experiment submerging bumblebee queens in water and discovered that the insects have the ability to survive land flooding.

After storing a shipment of 300 hibernating common eastern bumblebee queens in a refrigerator, Dr Sabrina Rondeau later found condensation had filled four containers housing the insects and "was sure that the queens were dead".

Bumblebees may be more resilient than previously thought: Hibernating queen bees can survive for up to a week underwater, researchers report Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters.

Raine explained that the common eastern bumblebee queen bee could survive underwater due to what is called diapause. This is when the queen bees undergo a “state of suspended growth and reproduction characterized by reduced oxygen intake” and can stop water from entering their bodies, per CNN.

If you fall into a deep sleep in a full bathtub, you might not expect to wake up — unless you’re a queen bumblebee. In fact, eastern queen bumblebees can hibernate underwater in frigid temperatures for up to a week.

This surprising observation led to a more in-depth experiment to see just how long bumblebees might live underwater