Bees That Drink Human Tears

This is, I kid you not, the actual title of a paper published in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society. I love it, because it sounds like it could just as easily be the fan-encyclopedia description of some minor creature from a Lovecraft story. The bees in question are workers from three species, Lisotrigona cacciae, L. furva and Pariotrigona klossi, and were studied--going about their tear-drinking business--in Thailand. From the paper...

...workers drank lachrymation (tears) from human eyes in more than 262 naturally-occurred cases at 10 sites in N and S Thailand during all months of the year. A few visits were also seen to eyes of zebu and dog, indicating a probable broad mammalian host range. On man the bees were relatively gentle visitors, mostly landing on the lower eyelashes from where they imbibed tears for 0.5-2.5 min, often singly but occasionally in congregations of 5-7 specimens per eye.

The authors think the bees have adapted to drink tears as a way to get some protein in their diet and may, possibly, drink tears in lieu of feeding on pollen at all. That's pretty nifty, if a bit creep-tastic.

Image shows a Thai bee, though I'm not sure if it's actually one of the species studied in this paper. From Flickr user travlinman43, via CC.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG1d6rUcMKc

this really hasn’t been mentioned?
Xenu teh WunderKat

I know the story was not about genus Apis, but I think “man” comes from Manu, a regular in some Hindu myths, and it seemed to just mean, “you know, someone like you and me,” and I would like very much to read a short story about a hive of Apis lachrymanu, and the orphan child living in the forest who is starving, is weeping over her lost parents, and feeding the bees, and she eats their honey, and is transformed . . . into . . . I don’t know, I want to find out.

Someone write it please? “The Child Who Cried Bee?”
- Sporadic Opinion
  
  That’s a GREAT idea for a modern fable. If you don’t write it before I have the time, I’d love to.
  
  just genius.
Darren Garrison

A photo:

http://www.foundshit.com/bee-sting-eye-psd/

Not necessarily a REAL photo, but it’s a photo.
Avram / Moderator

First the hummingbird feeder helmet, now this. I wouldn’t have expected animals-feeding-from-human-eyes to be viable as a theme.
Anonymous

If I was having a crappy day and I start bawling, does that mean I would get swarmed by them?
Chris Tucker

I’ll see your tear drinking bees and raise you the BAT EATING TITS OF HUNGARY!
- Anonymous
  
  well played my friend, very well indeed!
Jesse

This was published in JoKES? But…
Anonymous

Not really surprising… if you work outside you notice bees and flies often drink your sweat.
robulus

Scott Tenorman must die!
Anonymous

“imbibed tears for 0.5-2.5 min, often singly but occasionally in congregations of 5-7 specimens per eye.”

WHO LETS THIS HAPPEN?
apoxia

Strange, I wonder how they carried out that experiment.

It annoys me that people still used “man” to refer to humans, both women and men.
- Anonymous
  
  Women have the sense to brush the bees away. So “man” is correct.
- Daemon
  
  Apoxia, you’ve got it backwards.
  
  The usage of “man” meaning “humans” is much older than the one where it means “adult males”. If anything, you should be complaining that we use “man” to describe adult males.
  
  For details: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=man
Snig

In the US, the sweat bees are fairly common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_bee

If a bee demands something from you, sweat and tears is the easy way to go, vs. toil or blood.
Anonymous

Take a good look at my face
You know my smile looks out of place
If you look closer it’s easy to trace
The tracks of the bees
Junglemonkey

I originally read “lachrymation” as “lachryNation,” which now just sounds like the Secret Kingdom of the Emo Kids.
Felton

You can tell that I’m sad because of the bees in my eyes.
Ceronomus

@Apoxia – Perhaps because it is proper usage of the word? It isn’t as if it is being used in the sense of slang.

As for the bees? I think that is something more out of a John Saul novel…wasn’t it “the Homing?”
- apoxia
  
  I believe using “man” is outdated, whether or not it is technically correct usage. I remember a study in my first year psyc text book (I don’t have it on me and can’t find the reference after a quick google search), that showed that young people given the assignment to make a collage for a book entitled something along the line of “the world of man” used a higher percentage of male figures in the collage then those asked to make a collage for the title “the world of people”. The authors interpreted this as meaning that “man” was taken to mean masculine, and thus altered their interpretation. Thus, I don’t like the usage.
toolbag

I love this planet.
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Me, too. ;)
Osprey101

Sure, but they don’t beat the vampire moths (genus Calyptra).
Anonymous

Goonfleet?
- Anonymous
  
  Hahahahahahaaaaa
  
  So thats how they took down B.O.B
- Anonymous
  
  fofofofofofofo
Anonymous

It sounds like a song by Marc Almond…

I have these irrational fears
Like Bees That Drink Human Tears
And rabbits with overgrown ears
Yes I think I’ve had too many beers
Anonymous

@#3

Doesn’t it annoy you that the word human contains the word man?

Hupeople we all are is.
Anonymous

Gypsy, lend me your tears.
Anonymous

“So sad, I let the bees drink my tears. ”
Man that is depression to new low. To not care that a bee is flying into your face.
Brainspore

“Bees drank my tears” sounds like some kind of punk rock follow-up to “Weasels ripped my flesh.”
Anonymous

Bees feed on pollen? Are you mad?
stegodon

Well, at least they aren’t tit eating bats.
Bitgod

The author wasn’t Scott Tenorman was it? I hear his tears are quite delicious.
Dave Bullock (eecue)

I for one would love some delicious sad honey.
Bade

We need Levi Stubbs on the double!
tellner

Reminds me of something from a few years ago in the New Scientist, a moth that drinks tears from sleeping birds – http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10826

and a poem that was written about it – http://knockingfrominside.blogspot.com/2006/12/sleepers-tears.html

The Madagascar moth drinks sleepers’ tears.
Each insect, merciless, to dreamers brings
the dust of midnight sadness, midnight fears.

Theyâ€™re silent; even waking, youâ€™d not hear
these famished sleep-intruders hovering.
The Madagascar moth drinks sleepers’ tears.

But in your dreams, youâ€™ll feel them circling near,
surrounding you with spectral flutterings
and dust of midnight sadness, midnight fears.

The nightingaleâ€™s aghast when they appear,
and tries to warn the sleepers. Hear, he sings:
â€œThe Madagascar moth drinks sleepers’ tears!â€

Into your dreams it falls, and falls for years,
the poisoned dust from Madagascan wingsâ€”
the dust of midnight sadness, midnight fears.

Tomorrow night perhaps theyâ€™ll reappear
but now theyâ€™re gorged on sorrow, staggering.
The Madagascar moth drinks sleepers’ tears
and feeds them midnight sadness, midnight fears.
lazybuttons

@10 Thanks for making my day
eustace

As I scanned the thread, the threat of a gender rant nearly scared me away. The poem is ample reward for reading on. “Into your dreams it falls, and falls for years…”