(WHDH) — A doctor treating a woman for a swollen eye was shocked when he found four tiny bees living under her left eyelid.
The insects that were removed from the Taiwanese woman’s eye, known as sweat bees, are minuscule in size and are said to live near graves and fallen trees, according to the ophthalmologist who treated her.
The woman had been visiting a relative’s grave about three hours earlier and she thinks that’s when the insects blew into her eye.
Hung Chi-ting, the head of the ophthalmology department at Taiwan’s Fooyin University Hospital, says the bees were nestled behind the woman’s eye and living off her tears, according to CNN.
Sweat bees got their name because they are drawn to the moisture and salt of human perspiration, which is also present in tears.
Chi-ting says he would have had to remove the woman’s eyeball to save her life if she waited any longer to undergo treatment.
The bees were extracted and the woman is expected to make a full recovery.
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