{"id":476461,"date":"2026-03-15T05:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/476461\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T05:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:48:20","slug":"bees-bumblebees-can-live-underwater-for-a-week-scientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/476461\/","title":{"rendered":"Bees: Bumblebees can live underwater for a week, scientists say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The discovery was made by experts at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who recreated winter conditions in the laboratory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Every year, bumblebee queens spend the cold months resting underground, before starting new colonies in spring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The team say the surprising discovery is possible thanks to two separate factors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The bumblebees are able to slow their bodies down so much, that they barely need any energy at all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the same time, they can also breathe underwater, thanks to a thin layer of air surrounding their bodies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scientists say their research proves just how tough these little insects are, and that they may be able to adapt better than previously thought with changing weather, brought on by climate change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Professor Charles-Antoine Darveau, from the University of Ottawa, explained: &#8220;This study shows how resilient these pollinators are. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Understanding these mechanisms helps us predict how bumblebee populations might cope with increasingly frequent spring floods,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The discovery was made by experts at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who recreated winter conditions in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-476461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}