I was in my garden and noticed an extremely potent, honey-like smell and discovered it was coming from my white Swiss chard that I let go to seed. Apparently that scent attracts a very particular type of insect because it was covered in dozens, maybe even hundreds of them...and only them. Even the bees were leaving it alone (although I watched a honey bee nearby attack a yellow jacket repeatedly for going near *it's* broccoli flowers).

Here are pictures of the unknown bugs:

It's a fly in the family Sciaridae, impossible to say which.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/...

A fly? Interesting. Not what I would have expected. Thank you for the lead...if I have extra time in the next few days, I might try to research more about flies in the family Sciaridae and find out if any have a particular affinity for Swiss chard because they pretty much ignored everything else in my garden (broccoli that bolted, poppies, carnations, leaves of other veggies, squash blossoms, etc...)