91Ö±²¥

If you want to be queen, don’t hold your breath.

That is, if you’re a bumblebee. While surviving for a full week underwater, the insects have the ability to breathe even as they are fully submerged, according to research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

It’s a critical ability because queen bumblebees spend six to nine months in diapause, a hibernation-like phase. They hunker down in shallow burrows, which can become waterlogged from rainstorms and snowmelt. Surviving over the winter is crucial for the insects to be able to establish their colonies come spring.

The study of the bees’ survival goes back to an earlier lab mix-up. Sabrina Rondeau, a co-author of the new study, was conducting research at the University of Guelph in Ontario about how pesticides affect bumblebees. To mimic winter conditions, she placed diapausing queens in soil-filled tubes in a refrigerator. But when she checked on them one day, some of the tubes had filled with water from condensation, leaving four queens inundated.

But the queens were still alive. Rondeau then conducted an experiment with more than 100 diapausing Bombus impatiens queens, or common eastern bumblebees, and showed in a 2024 study they can survive underwater for a week. The new follow-up study provides insights into how they manage not to drown.

Using specialized equipment, it was found that queen bees in diapause are consuming oxygen and producing carbon dioxide while underwater. Even a small amount of oxygen available through underwater breathing can sustain a dormant queen bee because they lower metabolism by 99% while in diapause. Metabolism slows even more underwater.

This article originally appeared in .

© 2026 The New York Times Company