Non-honey bees

Oh no, I’m so hopeless in challenges. I haven’t even made it to half of the #inktobee and not sure if I’ll ever catch up. Never mind, I have some absolutely amazing story for you.
Stingless bees are very small social bees from the family Apidae which can be found in tropics and subtropics. Some of them have quite strange dietary habits – three famous species of “vulture bees” feed on carrion, some species come to humans to lick their sweat, and there are also a few species which… suck tears. According to the researchers, they are quite adept at collecting them. Experienced workers are so gentle that they almost don’t disturb their ‘victim’. I strongly recommend you read the recently published review article, the research on these bees is really interesting and there are photos of the bees in action. Hans Bӓnziger, the first author of the article, let the bees feed on his tears, and his dedication to research is impressive. I was amazed that he was marking these bees with spots of paint with the help of brush and mirror, when they were sitting at his eyes 😮 And these bees are tiny, only a few milimeters long!
I once read another paper about these bees, and the cartoon you see is a remake of a drawing I did in Polish for my other fanpage.