Horrific discovery of live bees in woman’s eye
He, a 29 year-old Taiwanese woman, was tending to a family member’s grave on tomb-sweeping day when she felt something enter her eye. Suspecting soil, she washed it out with water, but by night felt a sharp stinging pain under her eyelid, which had begun to water profusely and swell.
A subsequent check at Fooyin University Hospital, Taiwan, revealed four bees living under He’s eyelids, feasting on her tears. The hospital’s Head of Ophthalmology, Dr. Hung Chi-ting, had suspected an infection, but saw the tiny legs of the bees under a microscope, wriggling in her tear ducts and feeding off the moisture and salt of her tears, “I pulled them out under a microscope slowly, and one at a time without damaging their bodies.”
Doctors successfully extracted all four sweat bees alive in a “world first” incident of its kind. He had saved her eyesight, and the lives of the bees, just by not rubbing her eyes – the venom would have blinded her if released.
“Sweat bees”of the Halictidae family are found all over the world, commonly nesting in the mountains and near graves. The small bees are attracted to human perspiration but are not usually aggressive, stinging only if provoked.
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