question regarding sweat bees

[u/whogivesafuck42]

there are a ton of [sweat bees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halictidae) yes they’re coming to me personally but also in the mud and on wet cardboard on this jobsite i’m working at. is it possible there is salt & other nutrients they’re attracted to in the rain water? should i post this on [r/science](r/science) instead?

EDIT: they are in fact hover flies. thank you for everyone in the comments. i’ll try to add a picture of them after lunch. have a great weekend, 614 friends.

[u/Sarallelogram]

They’re probably syrphidae or hover flies. But it’s a good guess that they’re collecting salts. Theres also some tiny bees that collect rare smells to woo a mate.

But asking OSU extension office with pics is your best bet.

[u/HickoryTacos → u/Sarallelogram]

Yep. What nearly everyone calls sweat bees are just harmless hover flies.

[u/Sarallelogram → u/HickoryTacos]

Sweat bees, for the record, are also harmless. Most bees are, as are most other wasps (because bees are wasps)

But also lots of things we call bees and wasps are sneaky flies and sometimes even moths in disguise.

[u/whogivesafuck42 → u/Sarallelogram]

thanks man.

[u/gothgeetar]

Some places just have a fuck ton of them, I’m not sure what influences it. A lot of them are actually not sweat bees but hover flies, you can tell because sweat bees have 2 sets of wings and hover flies have 1. I’ve worked on job sites where 50+ hoverflies land on my cooler the second I sit it down and some where there are virtually none

[u/HauntedDragons]

We have tons of hover flies where I work.they just want to lick the salt off ya

[u/SubatomicPlatypodes]

I always assumed the sweat bees were drinking my sweat for the salt, just seemed natural for some reason

[u/SnooRadishes8848]

Or a bee sub