Doctors discovered small insects, known as sweat bees after a woman complained of a swollen eye.
When the young Taiwanese woman named He took herself to a hospital this week complaining of a swollen eye, she expected to be treated for a simple infection.
Instead, the 29-year-old and her doctor were horrified to discover four bees living under her eyelids, feasting on her tears. According to The Guardian, doctors at Fooyin University Hospital in Taiwan described the incident as a "world first", having successfully managed to extract all four sweat bees alive from her tear duct.
Speaking at a press conference, the hospital's head of ophthalmology, Dr. Hung Chi-ting, 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."
According to CTS News, He, who was referred to by her surname only, had been tending to a family member’s grave and was pulling out weeds when she felt something go into her eye.
Presuming it was soil, she washed it out with water but by night it had begun to swell up and she felt a sharp stinging pain under her eyelid.
At the hospital the next morning, Hung had suspected an infection, but when he looked at He’s eye through a microscope, he saw the tiny legs of the bees wriggling in her ducts, where they were feeding off the moisture and salt of her tears.
