A young Taiwanese woman got the scare of her life when she learned she had four bees living inside her left eyelid.
At first, the doctors who treated the woman, known only as Ms. He, thought they were just treating a normal eye infection. When they checked her eye through a microscope, however, they were in for a great shock.
The Bees Were Alive
According to CTS News, He was in the mountains weeding and tending her relatives' graves when she felt a sharp pain in her left eye. At first, she thought dust flew into her eyes, but even when she splashed water on her face, the pain wouldn't stop.
She went and cleaned up the graves as part of the annual Chinese Qing Ming tomb-sweeping festival in Taiwan.
"It was very painful. Tears wouldn't stop coming out of my eye," says He. "I was scared to death."
After three hours of being in pain, she finally went to Fooyin University Hospital, where she discovered that the pain was actually caused by four sweat bees feeding on her tear ducts.
According to Hung Chi-ting, the hospital's head of ophthalmology, it was the first time he encountered something of the sort.
"I saw something that looked like insect legs, so I pulled them out under a microscope slowly, and one at a time without damaging things inside," says the doctor.
She was wearing contact lenses, so she didn't make the mistake of rubbing her eyes. If she had done so, the bees inside her eyes would've produced venom, increasing her chance of getting an infection and going blind.
He is expected to make a full recovery from the incident.
What Are Sweat Bees?
Sweat bees, otherwise known as Halictidae, are very minuscule insects that only grow 3 to 4 millimeters (0.12 to 0.16 inches) in length. They are called sweat bees for a reason, as aside from feeding on nectar and pollen, one important aspect of their diet is salt, which they sometimes get from human sweat.
Sweat bees are found all around the world, and because of their minuscule size, they were able to get inside He's eye. They are also known to frequent grave sites, which is why He unfortunately met some of them.
