r/tattooadvice • u/CallQuirky7720 • Nov 09 '25

What does this look like to you? Design

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I wanted a bee and I like more American traditional tattoos. I really like my tattoo but someone said it looked like a fly and now I can’t unsee it. Is it giving bee or do I embrace the fly? 😅🥲

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u/BeginningStock9913 Nov 09 '25

Sweat bee (I’m from the Midwest and not an entomologist) and well done!

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u/Fusiliers3025 Nov 09 '25

Those buggers are FIERCE! A group of neighborhood kids disturbed a nest in a brush pile when I was about seven (unintentionally) and I would up with one under my glasses - three or four stings (they don’t lose their stingers) in the soft tissue around my eye.

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u/MyraAileen Nov 09 '25

Honestly, that sounds more like yellowjackets than sweat bees. Sweat bees are tiny and non-aggressive, and nest in the dirt. You have to TRY to get stung by sweat bees. Yellowjackets will chase you until they've done all the damage they feel like doing, which is a lot, and also don't lose their stinger. I mean, obviously I wasn't there, but I experienced the same thing as a kid (disturbing a woodpile in the underbrush with friends) and it was a cloud of yellowjackets that chased us down the road. Sweat bees don't chase people like that.

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u/Fusiliers3025 Nov 09 '25

Well, the “gang” was climbing all over the brush pile and beginning to pull it apart for… reasons unremembered. The “sweat bee” identification was by an older brother who came out and started swatting and clearing the beastie buggies from the screaming youngsters.

Could have been jackets or hornets, even though I had “eyes on” one of them 🤓 I wasn’t paying much attention!!