The western bumblebee, which nearly went extinct in the 1990's, may be recovering from its brush with non-existence, according to the Bee Nerd.
Western bumblebees were once common throughout the western half of the United States. By the end of the 1990's, most people believed the tiny animals were gone from the Puget lowlands.
Will Peterman, an amateur scientist, come across one of the rare insects, which he terms a six-legged Bigfoot. After his discovery of a living member of this rare species, several other people in the area reported also seeing the insects. Dozens of reports came in, telling of encounters with the distinctive insects. Most of these could not be confirmed, but several appear to be real.
Several colonies of the bees have now been found near Tacoma, Everett, Lynwood and on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state.
Peterman now wants to undertake a more thorough study of how populations of western bumblebees are changing in recent years.
The self-proclaimed bee nerd believes numbers of western bumblebees may have diminished two decades ago due to colony collapse disorder, or CCD. No one is quite certain what factor(s) are responsible for the deaths of large numbers of bees in North America and Europe. Each winter, slightly less than 20 percent of honeybees die during a typical winter. Starting in the 1990's, this number began increasing, leading to the loos of colonies throughout the western world in the northern hemisphere. This soon became known as colony collapse disorder, or CCD.
If western bumblebees are making a comeback, it could suggest they have developed a resistance to whatever is causing the loss of bee populations. If this is true, and the mechanism of resistance can be identified, it may be possible to rescue other species of bee, as well.
"At the top of our list is figuring out what's going on with the recovery - if it really is a recovery," Peterman told the press.
Much of the food harvested by humans depends on bees and other insects for pollination.
Peterman is attempting to raise $12,000 for his study, using an Indiegogo fund-raising campaign. His group will collect cell samples from the insects, attempting to ascertain the health of the species, as well as the nature of any resistance they have to CCD.
"The USDA has developed a cell collection technique that only trims a few milligrams off of one of the middle legs... It isn't quite a specimen on a pin, but it works - and it doesn't hurt the bee," Peterman's group wrote on their donation page.
Western bumblebees can be easily identified by their distinctive white rumps.
