Bumblebee queens breathe underwater to survive drowning

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

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LlamaTrauma 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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timschmidt 28 minutes ago | parent [-]

Friend, much of Science involves mass murder of complex life including mammals, for the express purpose of teasing apart how their individual bits work. If you live near an R1 university, there's very likely a facility nearby dedicated to the raising of lab animals. An ex worked at one that raised rodents and chickens for Michigan State University.

A scientist once confided in me that he became a scientist because as a child he really liked lizards, but as a scientist, he spends much of his time murdering lizards. :-/

Everyone involved has to confront this reality on their own, come to terms with it, and figure out the line where they're willing to meet it. All the researchers I've known have cared deeply about the welfare of the animals, despite sometimes doing terrible things to them for science. They worked to limit their suffering and dispatch them as humanely as possible. Many rationalize it by comparing to the food system, which raises and slaughters orders of magnitude more souls, and keeps people living, but does not discover or record as much new knowledge as science.

	▲	throwup238 14 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> All the researchers I've known have cared deeply about the welfare of the animals, despite sometimes doing terrible things to them for science. As far as I know it’s one of the few fields with authorities that can block animal cruelty on ethical grounds through ethical review boards (mandatory Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees in the case of federally funded research). Researchers must submit detailed protocols describing exactly what they plan to do, how many animals they’ll use, what procedures will be performed, how pain and distress will be managed, and why alternatives like cell cultures won’t work. There’s a whole framework called the 3Rs: replace animals where possible, reduce the number used, and refine procedures to minimize suffering. Science is the wrong tree to go barking up, especially given the impact of the research overall, compared to clothing or food or other animals products.
	▲	LlamaTrauma 13 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This is definitely a nuanced issue. I'm sure there's worse going on than what's in this experiment, and the food industry is certainly far worse. I just wish we'd say the quiet part out loud and put more effort into discovering where that line should be. The ethics section of this paper in its entirety is: > This work did not require ethical approval. We minimized the number of animals used in the experiment and kept manipulations to a minimum. edit: formatting

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jmount 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is "to survive floods" not to "survive drowning."

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NAR8789 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society Bee

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xattt 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Source paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/293/2066/202...

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cubefox 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

(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.)

	▲	airstrike 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		idk a nice high quality image of a Bumblebee queen seems suitable here

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PlunderBunny 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

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gnabgib 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They certainly do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_sting

> A bee sting is the wound and pain caused by the stinger of a female bee puncturing skin. Bee stings differ from insect bites, with the venom of stinging insects having considerable chemical variation. (..) Bumblebee venom appears to be chemically and antigenically related to honeybee venom.

Wasps both sting and bite (welt size is a good indicator)

	▲	taneq an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Huh. I also have grown up thinking bumblebees don’t sting, but: > Female bumblebees can sting repeatedly, but generally ignore humans and other animals. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee So they can sting, they just don’t want to. Further proof, if any were needed, that bumblebees are Best Bees. :)

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lll-o-lll an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

TIL that bumblebees actually can sting. Not only can they sting, they can sting repeatedly (unlike the honey bee). They just choose not to.

Genteel bees.