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Meet the world’s biggest bee. It has a wingspan of 2.5 inches and is four times bigger than the European honeybee. And until recently, it hadn't been seen alive by scientists in 40 years. This is the story of the giant bee’s triumphant return. 🐝 1/ wired.trib.al/T1yKSS2
This giant bee was named by explorer Alfred Russel Wallace in the 1850s. An Indonesian local brought him a specimen described as “a large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a stag-beetle.” 2/ wired.trib.al/T1yKSS2 
After Wallace, the second to study the species in the field was an entomologist named Adam Messer, but that wasn't until 1981. He observed the bee using its huge mandibles and part of the mouth called a labrum to harvest resin from a tree. 3/ wired.trib.al/T1yKSS2
The resin may help explain why Wallace’s giant bee evolved to be so giant. In addition to waterproofing tunnels, the sticky resin may help keep the termites out of the termite mounds in which the bees tend to burrow and reside. 4/ wired.trib.al/T1yKSS2
But the giant bee hasn’t been seen in 40 years. Clay Bolt, a conservation photographer, forayed into the tropical jungles of Indonesia last month in search of it. After six days searching maybe 40 termite mounds, he found movement. 5/ wired.trib.al/T1yKSS2
Bolt placed a test tube over the entrance and coaxed the bee out with gentle flicks of grass blades, capturing this “king of bees.” (Despite the name, it’s the females who are the giants, measuring almost twice as long as the males). 6/ wired.trib.al/T1yKSS2
The simultaneously horrible and reassuring truth is that while insects won’t altogether vanish from the face of the Earth, some suffer more than others. As our world changes, the challenge is understanding species like Wallace’s giant bee so that we can protect them. 7/
This is particularly urgent for large species. The bigger you are, the fewer of your kind can fit in an ecosystem. For now, though, the giant bee stands as a triumph of survival and of the scientific endeavor. Read more: 8/ wired.trib.al/T1yKSS2
