4 bees found in woman’s eye feed on her tears to live

A sweat bee, as described in the Taiwanese patient’s case of having four bees living under her eye (INQUIRER.net Stock Photo)

A woman in Taiwan found out that she became part of a rare case—as she had four bees under her eye, which have been feeding on her tears to survive.

The woman, only identified by her last name as He, said she visited Fooyin University Hospital in the county of Pingtung to have her eye checked. 

“I saw something that appeared to be insect legs,” the hospital’s ophthalmology head Professor Hung Chi-ting said in a news conference, later reported by The Sun on April 4.

“[S]o I pulled them out under a microscope one at a time without damaging their bodies,” Hung added. After pulling all out, he discovered that there were four sweat bees living in the patient’s eye.

Sweat bees, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation, are small and not aggressive. Such bees are also attracted to perspiration, and at times land on humans to get moisture and salt from their sweat and tears.

“They nest near graves and in fallen trees, so it’s easy to come across them while hiking in mountains,” Hung said about the insects.

Meanwhile, He said she might have gotten the bees during her and her relative’s visit to the cemetery.

“We were visiting and tidying a relative’s grave, and I was squatted down pulling out weeds,” she said. “I felt wind blowing into my face, then I felt something in my eye which I thought was sand or dirt. I cleaned my eye using water but it started hurting a lot at night, a sharp pain, and I was tearing up.”

Hung regarded the case as a “world’s first.”  Katrina Hallare /ra

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