ID flies/bees on garlic chive flowers?

too. I don't know why they do that. I've never considered whether they might contaminate the flowers because I don't eat them.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@lycos.com says... :) I have garlic chives growing in my garden in Cleveland, Ohio. Those flowers :) taste so good. I went out to pick some to eat yesterday, and I seen what :) looked like small flies or bees all over the flowers, and they fly away when :) you get too close. I took a picture, link above (about 1 MB). What are :) these, and do these insects being on the flowers ruin the edibility of the :) flowers? I eat these flowers raw, and I picked some anyways, and brought :) them in and washed them but didn't eat any yet, until I know they are not :) tainted by the bugs. I want to try to freeze some of the flowers so I can :) use them later. Thanks much. :) :) There is no way to know if they may have tainted the flowers or not...did they just emerge from their pupa and flew straight to the flowers, or did they first visit and pick up bacteria from the two day old dead bird two houses down...no way of knowing. Just wash the edibles well.

Thanks for the responses so far. Are you sure these are houseflies? I thought they looked like houseflies at first too, but they seem a bit smaller, and I was wondering what houseflies were doing on flowers instead of manure, so I thought it had to be something else. If it's houseflies, I'm throwing those flowers out, hard to grasp that dirty, nasty, filthy houseflies would be feeding on flowers.

they sure do look like typical house flies.

They are common flies

Common names Green Bottle - Blow fly (Calliphoridae Phaenicia sp.)

Dieter

Thanks all again. Guess I just didn't want to entertain the thought that those may be houseflies on my food. The nerve of those flies, landing in my garlic chives. Guess I have no choice but to pick the flowers and throw them out so the flies won't be attracted there. I won't eat them now, as I was eating them until I seen the flies on them. The flies must be a newly hatched batch as they do seem smaller that the average house fly around here, we get some huge ones.