The United Kingdom has been issued an extreme heat warning over Monday and Tuesday (local time) and it's not just humans who will need to prepare for the high temperatures.
UK forecaster the Met Office tweeted: "For the first time temperatures of 40C have been forecast in the UK and the first ever red warning for exceptional heat has been issued."
New research has found male honey bees exposed to extreme temperatures may suffer an explosive fatal reaction.
Postdoctoral fellow at UBC's Michael Smith Laboratories Dr Alison McAffee said when male bees are subjected to high temperatures their bodies begin to convulse.
"They spontaneously ejaculate. They have this elaborate endophallus that comes out and is about the size of their own abdomen. It's pretty extreme," Dr McAffee said.
Worker bees try to maintain a temperature of 35C and if things get as hot as 42C then half of the drones will die within six hours, Metro UK reported.
"We know that after six hours at 42C, half of the drones will die of heat stress," Dr McAffee said.
Dr McAffee first learned the bees were not able to cope with extreme heat after a heatwave in British Columbia in 2021 resulted in a large amount bee deaths.
Metro UK reported after the high level of deaths her team conducted a series of experiments to test hive insulation materials, in order to prevent another wave of mass deaths during future heatwaves.
The methods included putting a protective polystyrene cover on the hives to help cool them down and putting a feeder full of sugar syrup at each colony to act as a cooling station.
'"Bees will naturally go find water to bring back to the hive and fan it with their wings to cool down, which achieves evaporative cooling much like we do when we sweat.
"Giving them syrup nearby should let them do the same thing, and the sugar in it motivates them to take it down faster," beekeeper Emily Huxter said.
