alt Hacker NewsBumblebee queens breathe underwater to survive drowning
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I suppose because of surface tension, at insect scales it is very easy for an insect to take a bubble of air underwater that is big enough for days of breathing.
> Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society Bee
It is "to survive floods" not to "survive drowning."
I'm uncomfortable with the methods used in this experiment. We don't even have a consensus on if or how insects feel pain, but we're raising them in labs for the purpose of drowning them. As far as I know freezing or crushing insects is a humane way for them to go, and I'm sure this research will be beneficial for insect conservation, but ultimately it's all in the interest of maintaining an ecosystem that humans rely on with little concern for the insects' well-being.
Is there any way to attract bumblbees in one's landplot?
It’s so interesting that we’re only now finding this out
(I keep noticing this, more and more websites are including unnecessarily huge images on top. This one has a 24 MP (6000×4000) header. At least it's a JPEG with "just" 5.83 MB, not a PNG.)
Edit: I’m wrong - ignore this please.
Bumblebees don’t sting, but they can bite, as I discovered after many years of picking them up when I saw them on the ground in a vulnerable spot.
Cool findings. However, considering the endangered nature of bumblebees in North America, it is sad and frustrating to see the number of Queens sacrificed in the name of research. Hundreds if not more.
This was the most grotesque part of the research, that sacrificed 20 bees right here:
> They froze five bees at each stage of the experimental process: before submersion, after four days underwater, after eight days underwater and after one week of post-submersion recovery. The researchers then ground up the frozen queens and measured the concentration of lactate in the resulting mush.
This could have been done without needing to kill the Queen bees. One such method has been known since 2017, that draws their blood through their antennae:
One time I stored a bag of maple leaves in a garbage bag which I used for feeding my compost. I didn't need it much over winter, and in spring when I went to use it, dozens of bumblebees came out. They'd hibernated in a bag of leaves. It was such a cold winter for our climate (it hit -15°C one night!) and somehow they were just fine.
When I was a kid I didn't think much about where they hibernate, how, or why. But they're definitely a species that continually yields fascinating revelations. Apart from their ability to sleep in leaves for 6 months or so, they're also able to learn to use door flaps and, apparently, survive flooding. They're resilient little creatures.
Every animal seems to have surprising abilities and behaviours if you're just lucky enough to see it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9Cr_M5osI