A man in his late 50s presented to the local eye
clinic after being invited to an ophthalmological examination
for a population-based survey on prevalence of blindness.He
was satisfied with his visual acuity and reported a slight decrease
in the upper visual field of his left eye.

His left eye also showed a mild paracentral corneal opacification,
and an intraocular foreign body embedded in the lens and
touching the upper temporal pupil border

Once we noticed the intraocular foreign body,we asked him
whether he had a history of ocular trauma.He reported that 5
years earlier, he had gotten multiple bee stings while riding a
horse in the local rural area. At that time, he had severe pain
and traveled to the next nearest eye clinic. The local ophthalmologist
removed multiple stingers from both eyes and prescribed
topical drugs; the patient felt better a few days later
and never returned for an ocular evaluation.

This presumed stinger is most likely from Apis mellifera; 
surgical removal of the stinger
and further analysis could confirm this hypothesis. Apis bees,
Pogonomyrmex ants, and multiple wasps have a barbed sting
lancet and are able to perform sting autotomy, the self amputation
of the stinger and poison sac (which remain in their
target) as a form of self-defense fromvertebrate predators.

To our knowledge, this is only the second report in the literature
of a presumed innocuous intraocular bee stinger attached
to the lens and the first time that optical coherence tomographic
images were used to analyze the presumed stinger.

Sá, A., Arruda, S., Cohen, M. J., & Furtado, J. M. (2015). Presumed Bee Stinger Retained Intraocularly in the Absence of Inflammation. JAMA ophthalmology.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html