Instead, the truth was much worse, according to local reports. Doctors found four live bees under her eyelid, feasting on her tear ducts.
The 29-year-old, identified only by her last name He, may have come into contact with the bees when tending to a relative’s grave. At the time, she thought she had got dirt in her eyes, accounting for the stinging.
According to local news outlet CTS, the woman went to Fooyin University Hospital for treatment. There, doctors successfully extracted the bees from the woman’s eyelid, in what is described as a “world’s first,” as reports The Straits Times.
According to Business Insider Singapore, the hospital’s head of ophthalmology, Dr Hung Chi-ting, told a press conference: “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.”
After removing the bees, the doctors identified the bees as sweat bees (Halictidae), which are attracted to human perspiration. The doctors claim He’s eyesight was saved by her not rubbing her eyes, which could have killed the bees and made the extraction much more difficult.
