Chapter 171: Chapter 171
The next day, Belissar spoke with the First of the Fifth and the Apiary queens on upgrading their beehouses into bee apartments. While they decided the general structure was fine, the First of the Fifth pointed out numerous small optimizations that would assist with better honey production. Multiple entrances so that foragers coming and going wouldn’t get in each other’s way, isolated trays for honey that could impact its surroundings like burning mana honey, slight rearrangements for better airflow, and other such improvements. Belissar took all of this into account and, once the structure had been fully planned out, began the construction work.
He actually had the DP to just upgrade the beehouses outright but decided to build them himself. Since they had wood trees in the Orchard and the Flower Meadow queens wanted to help with construction anyways, there was not point in spending extra DP cutting down on resources and effort. Besides, he also enjoyed having a personal hand in the bees’ abode. It made them happy and it was the least he could do given all they were doing for him.
There was a question on the digging queen and burning queen’s hives, seeing as they were dug into the ground instead of wooden structures, but the digging queen herself provided the solution. Her workers, as per their name, were quite good at digging, so they could easily expand the subterranean hives. Belissar would just need to provide them with additional frames and maybe an extra entrance or two and they could handle the rest. The queen offered to do so for the Third of the Sixth’s hive as well but both Belissar and the Third of the Sixth decided to wait. After all, he had plans for the future regarding her abode, so they both agreed to wait until Belissar could build his envisioned volcano room before making major expansions to her hive.
And so, Belissar set off on his task for the coming days or weeks until his Tower would be ready for the next expansion…
It was not so, however, for one of the queens at the meeting with him. The Fourth Queen of the First Dynasty of the Eight Spawner, the first of her line, had the dubious distinction of being the last queen spawned in the Apiary. She had even been the lastborn in all of the King’s realm until the King had raised the bumblebee queens.
But that had been little comfort for her. The bumblebee queens were an entirely different species from the rest of them…and even now, they had begun to grow at a rapid pace. They were already larger than her at this point and showed no signs of slowing down. They, unlike her, appeared to possess a unique advantage.
Which left her, once again, as the least remarkable of the King’s queens. Born last, the slowest to grow, the slowest to expand. The queen who lived furthest from the King in the Apiary, born too late to even participate when the prime territory was claimed. The queen least likely to receive a magical palace. The queen who, even after receiving a magical palace, still lagged behind the others.
And that was a problem, for she was about to be left behind once again.
The First of the Fifth went without saying, an existence beyond anything she could ever hope to achieve. The Fourth of the Seventh had set out and claimed an entire room to her name. The Second of the Sixth and others had now set themselves apart by evolving on the honey of special flowers, and received entire patches of flowers to themselves from the King as a result. The Third of the Sixth was going to receive an entire room like the Fourth of the Seventh.
Beero was about to start another training session with the other wounded soldiers when one of them began dancing, signaling that someone was approaching her. Beero turned around and her antennae began to twitch. One of the queens was approaching her, and not one she recognized from the Flower Meadow.
“Hello, am Fourth of the Eight from the Apiary.”
“Hello, am Beero. How can help?”
The Fourth of the Eight slowly landed on the ground with her antennae twitching. Her wings buzzed a bit and she fidgeted in place, but, eventually, she began to dance.
The Fourth of the Eight paused…and then began to dance rapidly with her wings beating.
“Beero can make magic honey, right? And can make tiny-lightnings? Can make honey with tiny-lightnings? If so, can get some? Know it’s bad to ask for but could really, really use. Just a little bit, just enough for a worker. Will give honey in exchange, as much as can. Will help however can.” ŕàƝ𝘖ʙЕȘ
The queen was dancing so rapidly Beero barely managed to catch what she was saying. But once she had processed what was going on…Beero froze.
That…was right, wasn’t it? She could make honey now. She had been so focused on trying to get back into the fight that she had forgotten about that. Hadn’t she already seen some of her sisters evolve into maddening soldiers by drinking special honey? That…probably would have been a better way to give her comrades lightning than zapping them and hoping they’d endure.
But what was done was done and they had all endured as well as she had, so Beero put that aside and considered the Fourth of the Eight’s request. She needed only a moment to decide.
“Yes, can make honey with tiny lightnings. Will give as much as can make.”
There was no question at all. Beero had been Find your next favorite novel on NovelHub today! Even before she was injured she had relied on the workers for her meals, and afterwards she had been fed vast amounts of honey when she could neither work for nor protect the hive of hives. So, now that she could now do both, and a member of the hive of hives was asking for her help, she would never even consider turning them down. Indeed, it would be her honor to now provide honey for the workers as they had always done for her.