Case of sweat bees found under woman’s eyelid
A 29-year-old Taiwanese woman presented to the hospital with a swollen eye and stinging sensation under her eyelid. However, the doctors were in complete shock after they discovered the cause of the swelling. In this case, the cause of the swelling was not a simple eye infection. Doctors discovered four sweat bees living under her eyelids, feeding on her tears.
Doctors at Fooyin University Hospital in Taiwan described this as a “world first”.
When examining the eye, the hospital’s head of ophthalmology Dr Hung Chi-ting found something that looked like insect legs. He said, I saw something that looked like insect legs, so I pulled them out under a microscope slowly, and one at a time without damaging their bodies.”
The patient recalled something going into her eye, pulling out weed while tending to a family member’s grave. Thinking it was soil, she washed her eye with water and let it be. However, her eye began to swell up by night with a sharp stinging sensation under he eyelid. Sweat bees are small bees attracted to sweat and tears. They are otherwise harmless and only sting when harmed. The bees are usually found in the mountains and near graves, which explains how they got in the woman’s eye.
References
Doctors discover four live bees feeding on tears inside woman’s eye https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/10/doctors-discover-four-live-bees-feeding-on-tears-inside-womans-eye
