Belissar clasped hands with Tarwantrad as she mentioned and thought about sending the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s Third Daughter to her. That…was a bit of a mouthful but the bees didn’t seem to mind so neither did Belissar.
He felt the Tower’s mana withdraw from the bee and for a moment regretted his decision, only for mana to connect to the stingless bees Tarwantrad provided him as well.
10,432 monsters transferred.
8,768 monsters received.
Belissar looked to the stingless hive, currently balled up around their queen. He guessed that, like Velebee previously, they were intimidated by his other bees, so he moved to introduce them and ease her concerns.
“Hi, I’m Belissar, welcome to my Tower! Let me introduce you to everyone and we’ll get you set up with a hive…they like beehouses, right?”
He glanced over at Tarwantrad, who nodded with a smile, before turning his attention back to the bee. Fortunately, it seemed to work as the queen crawled out of the ball and onto his hand. The Fourth of the Seventh and the First of Fifth’s First Daughter came to greet her. The queen seemed even more frightened than Velebee had been at that, but the Fourth of the Seventh was one of the friendliest queens in the Tower so Belissar figured it would work out.
His smile dropped, however, as he watched the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s dance with the new queen grow more intense…followed by all of his queens suddenly scrambling back to their hives. Niobee took off from his head and danced before him before he could ask what was wrong.
“King! New queen says new hive not as nice, queens want to prepare First of Fifth’s First Daughter’s Third Daughter! Can?”
But it was time to move on, for there was another queen who needed his help. After confirming all the preparations were completed or about to complete and that Tarwantrad could handle things from there, he turned his attention to the stingless queen, who was currently being escorted by Niobee. Niobee immediately noted his attention and began dancing.
“King! New queen will work with First of the Fifth’s First Daughter, so hive should be in Orchard!”
Belissar grinned. Niobee had gone and answered his question before he could ask, she really was the best.
“Got it, the beehouse is already ready so I’ll move it over. Shall we go check it out?”
The stingless queen acknowledged him with pheromones and mana while Niobee danced happily about and her whole swarm followed along. He was going to trust Tarwantrad with one of his bees, so he would do his best to take care of hers in turn. Ȓ𝖆ꞐỐβΕ𐌔
He would have a talk with the new queen about violence between bees, however.
Tarwantrad led the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s Third Daughter to the beehouse she had prepared in the nursery room…along with her now much larger, much more well-supplied and heavily armed swarm. And the Fourth of the Seventh accompanying her, along with all the workers and soldiers that accompanied said queen.
She…had a lot to think about regarding her bees. It was one thing to let the bees be bees when the vast majority of them were mundane. But her stingless bees had recently become monsters…a fact that Tarwantrad had honestly overlooked. Even with plants, which were less active as a rule, the more complex monsters had to be handled with care and a level of involvement others did not require. She would never leave an alraune to their own devices, for example, so she may have been foolish in doing so with her monster stingless bees.
To hammer in the point, Belissar’s tower starkly demonstrated just how far monster bees could deviate from their instincts, especially if encouraged to do so. Tarwantrad herself had done something similar with her flowers, building networks of plants that worked together, but had completely left her bees to their own impulses. She hung her head at that thought. She now understood why the God of Bees had not approached her first. She had been content to leave her bees as they were. Belissar had striven to help them become better. She had a lot to learn, it seemed.
But this was no time for regrets. She was about to introduce a hive from Belissar’s Tower into her own, bringing two sets of wildly different bees into contact with one another. That was an event that had the potential to upset entire ecosystems and so one she could not ignore. She did not even want to imagine what a war between her bees and one of Belissar’s hives might look like, which is why she had already forbidden violence towards the new bee, in addition to her desire to fulfill Belissar’s trust in her. Still, that was only the bare minimum, she definitely needed to take a more active role in her bees’ affairs from now on.
She had wanted to ask Belissar about how he developed his hive of hives, but he also needed to get the stingless queen situated, so it would have to wait for tomorrow. And that meant at least one day that her bees and his could collide.
Still, it wasn’t all bad. Perhaps one of Belissar’s bees could prove an inspiration to her own, and the impetus for her to take a more active role among them. So long as she could prevent the monster bees and stingless bees from colliding that was…or perhaps as long as she could manage the damage if a clash proved unavoidable.
She arrived at the beehouse and opened it up. Knowing how large some of Belissar’s bees could get, she built it like one of his Bee Apartments.