I slept, I ate, and I strolled around the hive for a couple of hours.
Then I got bored and went to make another project—a children's textbook so my daughters could learn letters and numbers.
I wrote them all out on wax and made crude drawings to signify their aning. The thoughts of giving these to Ambrosia and teaching her to read and write fueled my enthusiasm.
Every day, I checked my colony's status to monitor the state of our food storage. The existing Foren Bees should've been enough to keep us afloat until more were trained. Especially since today the first bees with the instinctive knowledge of 'Primitive Containers' technology were about to erupt from their pupae.
Or so I thought.
〔Your colony〕
〔Wellness〕: 84 %
〔Population〕: 24 thousand
〔Developnt level〕: 2
〔Developnt points〕: 6 / 100
〔Species〕: Common Honey Bee
〔Attributes〕
> Workpower: 15
> Military: 11
> Brainpower: 73
> Logistics: 16
> Resilience: 8
〔Resources〕:
> Food: 71 units
> Building materials: 10 units
〔Technologies〕
Dance Communication
Hive Building
Food Preservation
Stone Hamrs
Forager Posts
Rank-Based Hierarchy
Primitive Containers
〔〕〔〕〔〕
I had 5 more developnt points (because my bees were only getting smarter), but our food storage diminished by 2 units!
It didn't feel like a lot, but it would take almost a month for Foren Bees to finish training.
If food continued to disappear at that rate, the hive would lose 50 units of food by this ti. One rainy day and we will run out.
So far, rains only happened at night and didn't stop bees from working during the day. Maybe it was because of the warm climate of this place, or we were just lucky. But luck could run out at any mont.
Bees couldn't fly in the rain. Everybody will stay at ho.
And starve!
Bees barely had any fat supplies to carry them over. Worse, since they flew a lot, they had to eat regularly, or they would outright faint.
So yes, I panicked a little. Just a little. And went to the nearest Foreman Bee who had just returned from a forager post.
"How?! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?! You were supposed to solve the problem, my daughters! TO SOLVE IT, BUT IT'S NOT SOLVED! We are all going to die now! Unless I know what happened and I solve it sohow!" I asked her calmly.
The Foreman Bee B294 cocked her hip and tilted her head.
"Father, what are you talking about? Everything is great! What problem?"
"Yes, *what problem*, I'm asking you!"
"Father, you are making no sense. Again."
I took a deep breath.
Yeah, I wasn't.
"Do you have any idea why we got less food yesterday than the day before that?"
"Oh, that." B294 waved her hand in dismissal. "Father, we will deal with it. Those are just so sprayers—the ants, you called them. There were a lot of them, and we couldn't guard the Forager Bees and the food—but that was just one day! We will deal with it tomorrow."
She was so overconfident! I shook my head in fatherly disapproval.
"We lost two entire units of food… Were there really so many ants?"
"There's never a single ant, Father! There are at least several, and they crawl all over the place! While we attack one, another will grab our food and get away!" B294 shook her fist angrily. "But we will kill them all for taking what's *ours*!"
Well, damn.
I recalled what I knew about ants. They lived in anthills, so of them had agriculture, and others were really, really dangerous. Also, if one ant found food, it would create a pheromone trail that will bring a dozen of its sisters to it.
'Now that I think, all these ants must've co because of the foraging posts… Damn. There will be only more of them the more foraging posts we make.'
I could tell my Foren Bees to make larger teams, but this will make more Foragers unprotected entirely.
A situation with no good way about it.
"B294, listen. You must bring more Foren Bees to forager posts next ti—and tell others to do the sa. A dozen guards for the overall area, and three more stand near the food stash at all tis. This way, even if one ant distracts you all, these three will fight any other ant that approaches."
"Oh, that's a good idea, Father. When there's a problem, we must bring more bees to solve it! We would've co up with it ourselves, though."
I shook my head and forcefully rubbed B294's head. Her black hair was only reaching her chin, and I ruffled it thoroughly.
"Stop being so overconfident! It will get you killed one day, I swear!"
"Father!" B294 protested, getting away. "Father, I will bring your thoughts to other Foren Bees. And I'm not overconfident!"
She flew away,
"A brat!" I shouted, but B294 didn't turn around. She got the last word.
Was this how fathers of teenage daughters felt?
'Forget this, Nectus! Focus on the important stuff. For one thing, we really need a separate military. These ants are only the first opponents this world throws at us out of way too many. But it's already hard to send my daughters off toward danger…'
The reason I gave my daughters all those simple nas was not only because there were too many of them to co up with original things, but because I didn't want to get too attached.
It was sad to think about how quickly they would die, if not from danger, then from old age. I could only try making the lives of their future sisters better and better.
One day, we were going to build a wall to keep all those ants away from *our* flowers! Maybe even make the ants pay for it.
But for now, I was just going to train border guards.
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