The Great Counting took so long that by the time I was done, most of the bees were asleep on the floor, in the same places where I counted them.
I was so tired, that I almost joined them there and then. It took a lot of effort to just get to the honeycomb cell I established as mine and fall asleep *there*.
Next day, I immediately went to chart plants and arrange everything.
For 15000 Forager Bees, the colony needed at least 3000 Foremen Bees. Say, 4000 Foremen Bees so my Foragers could be better protected.
'That's a large number, and it's going to be a total mess to cooperate. Hm…'
Just giving bees jobs wasn't enough anymore—someone had to be in charge. Splitting my bees in dozens had worked so far.
〔Rank-Based Hierarchy〕
Brainpower requirement: 50
Workpower: +1 per 1 thousand affected workers.
Military: +1 per 1 thousand affected soldiers.
Brainpower: +1 per 1 thousand affected scientists.
Logistics: +1 per 1 thousand affected administrators.
Allows creating advanced administration.
'As I said, system—the rank pyramid. A very important thing.' I nodded proudly to myself. The requirement was huge, but my colony had 61 brainpower—my bees were smart!
'Inconvenient. I will have to write down the names of my subordinates, then. But at least ranks will let my bees count themselves just by their fingers. More or less… But how to make sure they remember all of this?'
After some thought, I prepared four wax tablets. Good thing that beeswax, made by Builder Bees, was plentiful in our storages. I could make anything out of it.
Each tablet had a row of ten dots, a row of ten notches, and a row of ten crosses.
In the hive, I gathered the first four Foremen Bees I've spotted for a special lesson, and gave each of them a tablet. I had a fifth tablet for myself, where I wrote down their names.
"From now on, you four have a special rank, girls!" I declared. "You are Chief Foremen. This means that each of you will be indirectly responsible for 1111 of subordinates! These tablets are here to remind you about how many this is. A dot for every Lieutenant Foreman, each of which will lead 10 Sergeant Foremen, each of *which* will lead 10 of Foreman Bees. Understand?"
Four bees energetically shook their heads.
"Not at all, Father! You come up with too many words at once!"
"I get it—we will be bosses of other Foremen Bees! That's great—just say it all again, please."
One bee just shook her head. She was the one who spent the most effort thinking through my words, and from her expression, her brain had just boiled.
"10… 10…" The Foreman Bee looked helplessly at her fingers. "One for each finger… Then one for each finger of their fingers?"
"Yes!" I cheered. "You get it, uh," I peeked at her status window, "B304! You can count on the fingers of your subordinates. Except, it's *they* who will do the counting. *You* will tell them what to do! And this is called 'hierarchy'."
"Hierarchy. Yeah, I get it! It means I'm the boss! And they are bosses, too."
All the Foremen Bees grinned like high school bullies when they heard that their "favorite" four-eyes was walking around with a "hit me!" tablet on his back.
Shit, were they getting drunk on power now, too? Were my daughters developing rank-based corruption just like that? Did I accidentally make them into bee cops?!
I panicked for exactly half a second, then shrugged and stopped caring.
'They risk their lives to keep their sisters protected—they can be a bit corrupt if they want. I will start worrying if they start taking bribes.'
"One thing first, though. There aren't enough Foremen Bees for all of you to command yet. You must train them. First, each of you take yourself ten subordinates from other Foremen Bees—the Lieutenants. Explain to them the hierarchy. Then they should take ten subordinates-slash-students each—the Sergeants… And the Sergeant Foremen will pick new students from Forager Bees—but only the youngest ones. There aren't enough hammers yet, so you all might have to train with just sticks."
The youngest bees will have the best genes. By my estimate, they might even have the latest set of genes I passed on.
My students were listening with interest as I explained they should also count their subordinates every morning and evening and search for them if they don't appear at counting.
I also suggested that the bees might draw their rank marks with something on their skin if they find a dye.
"Oh, I know what is hard to wash off and is bright!" a Foremen Bee immediately exclaimed. "Blood!"
Other three nodded in agreement, smiling.
"Yeah, and there's plenty of it inside the hunters and thieves that we fight outside."
"We can just draw marks with blood later!"
Scary. They were so scary…
It was like a game for them—the kind where you do immoral things for a small profit or just because you can and it's funny—except it wasn't.
'Then again, it's practical… And just a *bit* funny, isn't it?' an insidious voice in my head said. Since it was me, it was totally right, as always.
"Blood is fine. You can have a square mark, since you have square tablets. And the marks for lower ranks are drawn on your tablets. Now, let's see how well you remember my explanations so far!"
I spent the rest of the day explaining this fairly simple (in my educated opinion) scheme and making sure my Chief Bees remembered it well. I was so glad that bees had good memory even before I increased their IQ level.
And the implementation of the 'Rank-Based Hierarchy' gave my colony 1 Development Point!
Next day, with responsibility for training Foremen Bees off my shoulders, I went to ensure my future Foremen Bees will have enough hammers.
But 4000 hammers were too huge of a task to put on only 10 Craftsmen Bees!