A Wild Bee Vanished for 144 Years... Or Did It?

Can a wild bee really disappear for 144 years? A volunteer with a net just proved the answer is stranger than you'd think. We follow the rediscovery of a wool-carder bee last recorded in the 1800s, a sweat bee unseen since 1906, and a never-before-documented "charming mining bee" caught in the act with a load of pollen — all turned up by trained volunteers running the first statewide bee survey in Washington in over a century. The real revelation isn't that these bees came back. It's that they never left. We just stopped looking. Find out why the map of America's 4,000 native bees is still half blank — and how you might help finish it right where you live.

www.secretpollinators.com

KEY SOURCES

• • WSDA news release: "Washington Bee Atlas finds 17 new state bee records; rediscovers 12 species last recorded in the state as long as 144 years ago" (March 2026). agr.wa.gov
  • U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service feature on the same findings (March 2026). fws.gov
  • OPB / KUOW (John Ryan), "Bee survey finds dozens of species new to Washington state" (March 26, 2026) — ~50,000 specimens; 30 new-to-state species; 14 unseen 50+ years; the wool-carder bee (last recorded 1882), the sweat bee (since 1906), the charming mining bee. opb.org / kuow.org
  • WSDA Pollinator Program / Washington Bee Atlas — first statewide survey since the early 1900s; ~600 native species; OSU Master Melittologist training; specimens housed at WSU's M.T. James Entomological Collection (est. 1892). agr.wa.gov/pollinators
  • ~4,000 native bee species figure: callback to E48 (USGS / Xerces estimates).

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