News Animals

Hibernating bumblebee queens have a superpower: Surviving for days underwater

Being submerged for a week didn’t put a damper on survival, suggesting a resilience to floods

A black and yellow common Eastern bumblebee queen is perched upside down on a pink apple blossom.

Common eastern bumblebee queens (Bombus impatiens), like the one seen here visiting an apple flower, are remarkably resilient to flooding when hibernating in their underground chamber, new experiments show.

Nigel Raine

By Darren Incorvaia

It’s not easy being a queen — a bumblebee queen, that is. To start her colony in the spring, an expectant queen must first survive the winter by hibernating alone in the soil, where she’s vulnerable to hazards like floods.