Doctor finds 4 tiny sweat bees living in woman's eye, feeding on her tears

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (KGO) -- No matter how your day is going, at least you don't have bees living in your eyes.

Doctors treating a Taiwanese woman for a swollen eye were shocked to find four tiny bees living under her left eyelid.

How could this happen? Experts say sweat bees, which are native to California, are known to live near graves and fallen trees.

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The woman believes the insects blew into her eye while visiting a family member's grave.

According to the ophthalmologist who treated her, the bees were living off her tears and were still alive when they were extracted from her eye.

The woman is expected to make a full recovery.

Halictidae, commonly referred to as the sweat bee, is a species native to California, according to UC Berkeley and UC Davis scientists.

UC Davis says the sweat bees are "common in our area" and "nest in soil in annual colonies."

According to UC Berkely, they get their name from "the tendency, especially of the smaller species, to alight on ones skin and lap up perspiration for both its moisture and salt content."

In other words, they tend to drink human sweat.