BEES UNDER WATER

An interesting snippet as this week’s Have I got news for you reported on research by the University of Guelph, (in Ontario, Canada,) who accidentally submerged a bumblebee for a week, and surprised to find it still alive, dunked a few dozen more for good measure! Many also survived.

Of course, members of the bee family don’t have lungs, like us, but refresh their oxygen through tiny holes along their flanks. That useful evolutionary turn and an ability to go into torpor if cold or stressed helps bumblebees to survive immersion for several days. This is surely an amazing finding, and hopefully an experience that researchers have stopped subjecting their poor bees to by now…?

See: https://www.theguardian.com/…/bumblebee-species-common…