Macro Sweat Bee

One of the most hilarious, but absolutely annoying creatures might be this little sweat bee.  Why do you ask?  Well, first of all how does it fly?  It has this really fat body and tiny wings.  In humming birds this trait works out fabulously, but in these little guys, well, Dumbo flew better.  They don't so much fly toward you as crash into you.  Not graceful.

What makes them absolutely annoying is the fact that they are drawn to sweat, and at Kaiam there seems to be plenty of that to go around.  These little guys crash land on your body, but since they're so small you hardly notice them.  As they walk across the surface of your skin they drag themselves through the forest causing a mild irritation.  If you sweep your hand across them, they act like spiders and hold fast, so the best thing to do turns out to be smashing them into your skin.  Good thing they don't have stingers.  They actually make honey from the sweat that they gather.  I haven't tasted it, but Anton has and he says that it is quite salty in flavor.  One time when he was at Kaiam they were covered with these bees and went searching for their home.  It turned out to be a small hole in a dead tree full of gloriously salty revenge.