World's largest bee, missing for 38 years, found alive in Indonesia

From reading the prior article, it doesn't look like anyone ever thought the bee was under threat. It's just that it's been documented occasionally, and that recently happened again.

It isn't documented continuously because people don't really care that much about it.

There's a rather big logging industry in Indonesia (exporting to Aus, NZ, US), and much of it illegal. So, if this bee is in the trees then it's quite possibly in trouble due to that, and putting it back may not actually be always practical.

FYI: Illegal logging is such a problem that there are systems in place to attempt to at least monitor the "approved stuff": https://www.certisource.org/