Hello Bugman!!
When I was a young lad I would often go fishing with my grandfather and in the hot days of summer we would often encounter "corn-tossel flies." In all actuality I have no idea what they are called, but I see them quite often and I have always been curious about them. I do not have any photos of them but I think I could describe them to you and you would be able to place them rather easily seeing as how they are a fairly common bug (in southern Illinois anyway).
The bug is obviously a fly of some sort that has an elongated and flattened body that is striped like a bee (yellow and black) and it has a head like a house fly (two large red eyes being the majority of its head). One thing I find to be very amusing is its behavior. The fly seems to hover much like a hummingbird, whereas your average fly would just zoom on by and land at its desired location, the "corn-tossel fly" (as my grandpa coined it) would hover over a certain location before deciding to land almost as if it were checking out the area to see if it would be ok to land on. Another amusing behavior it possesses is its way of landing on hand, arm, or leg and doing "the fly suck". Whilst doing "the fly suck" it will move about the immediate vicinity of where it decides to land and bob its little bee-butt up and down with every other step. When I first discovered these peculiar flies the motion of its butt reminded me of how a bee stings, and I used to think that it was in the process of stinging when this occurred.
If you could identify this bug and provide me with a little info on it I would greatly appreciate it!
-CTF guy

Dear CTF Guy,
We have never heard of a Corn Tossel Fly. It sounds like you are describing a Flower Fly, Family Syrphidae. The larvae eat aphids and other destructive plant pests. The adults eat pollen, which is why perhaps they are attracted to corn tassels. The only photo we have was sent by Daniel from Mexico City.

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