We didn't have a map of the territory, but I knew Foragers didn't fly farther than half an hour away from the hive.
With their speed roughly estimated at 60 kiloters/per hour, it ant that the hive's "territory" was a circle around 30 kiloters in radius.
Good thing I still could rember the formula to calculate the circumference of a circle.
2*3,14*30=188. 188 kiloters or 3 hours of flight.
6 hours if the flight was slow enough to look out for ants and other threats, as well as take rest stops.
For every part of the territory border to be patrolled at least every 10 minutes during dayti, we'd need 35 patrols. 40 to be sure.
Each patrol could have just 10 bees—enough to deal with wasps and ants. Which ant I needed 300 Warrior Bees in total. Plus spares, so might make it 400.
'This is more doable than I thought. I feared I would take more bees from other duties and our food production would tank even more.'
Strength: 9
> Agility: 44
> Endurance: 10
> Defense: 9
> Intelligence: 100
> Perception: 43
〔Special abilities〕
Flight, Barbed Stinger, Royal Jelly Production
〔Genes〕
Enhanced Intelligence X, Increased Lifespan I
〔〕〔〕〔〕
The bees nodded silently. I paused.
"You won't cheer? That's supposed to be a cheer-worthy thing. You will be brave heroes protecting your hive from the enemy!"
"Aren't we always?" B1002 asked. "But you know better, Father. Cheer! We are heroes now!"
"Cheer!"
"Cheer!"
The cheers were subdued, but genuine.
'Actually, their chances of dying now are much higher than before. Maybe they *shouldn't* cheer…' I thought.
But too late.
When Warrior Bees stopped cheering, I picked one out of every dozen and gave them the rank of Sergeants.
This ant explaining ranks first. Then I explained to them what their job was. All together, it took another day, but this wasn't the hardest part.
They had to learn their patrol route!
Bees had great spatial coordination and decent mory, especially considering their naturally low intelligence. If they saw their patrol route once, they could repeat it later easily.
But… soone had to show them.
Soone smart, soone who wanted to draw a map of surroundings, anyway. The only person who knew how to draw (stickn and stick-bees).
***
Early the next morning, a great swarm of 41 bees— and all my Sergeant Warriors—flew out of the hive, led by .
The clouds were so thick and gray in the sky that I could barely see the sun. As if the sky itself reflected my mood.
But I couldn't be scared back into the hive! Not by the sky, and not by all the big and hungry things that lived outside. I had to do this, for everybody's sake!
I pointed in the sun's direction, and the swarm flew there at full speed, staying just below the fern treetops.
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