honey-fly

The crane's-bill has a word for the gnat; the helleborine fills her goblet only for the wasp; the yellow iris calls to the honey-fly; the meadow saffron's veined cup is for the bee.

The Spring of Joy: A Little Book of Healing 1917

Hazel had eaten quite a quantity of honey, and had made an appreciable difference in the wimberry yield of half an acre, for she sipped hastily like a honey-fly.

Gone to Earth Mary Gladys Meredith Webb 1904

Were an observer of a hundred and fifty times our height and about seven hundred and fifty thousand times our importance (these being the relations of stature and weight in which we stand to the humble honey-fly), one who knew not our language, and was endowed with senses totally different from our own; were such an one to have been studying us, he would recognise certain curious material transformations in the course of the last two thirds of the century, but would be totally unable to form any conception of our moral, social, political, economic or religious evolution.

The Life of the Bee Maurice Maeterlinck 1905