Belissar hummed as he finished hammering the final nail in a new beehouse. The karnuq’s smith continue to hone his craft and had made a hammer and nails among other tools, so Belissar continued to improve his beehouses. He turned to the waiting hive and waved his hands from them to the house.
“There you go, what do you think?”
The new stingless queen stared at the box before releasing her pheromones.
“New flower tender…is giving magical palace?”
Belissar smiled and nodded.
“Yes. Check it out and let me know if there’s any adjustments you’d like, and then I’ll turn it into a feature.”
The stingless queen just stood still for a bit before starting to tremble. She glanced at one of the Orchard workers nearby, only moving once the other bee danced an encouragement. She slowly, hesitantly hovered over to the hive and began to check inside. When he asked Tarwantrad about how stingless bees built their hives, it sounded like they were remarkably similar to the butcher bees, so he had used that design for the stingless bees’ new home.
The stingless bee slowly crawled out.
“Is…great. Perfect. Great thanks to new flower tender.”
He would hold off for now, though. His bees had plenty on their plate and were still working hard at implementing all of the new options they had recently received. Adding more wouldn’t particularly help them, for example there were plenty of things he could try to create even more Water rooms, but what would be the point when only the swimming and slime bees could interact with them and there was currently only one of each? Best to let them expand and grow. The First of the Fifth herself recently apologize for handing off management of the other hives and flower allocation to her First Daughter so that she could focus on her evolution and its honey-making potential. Belissar had no issue with that, if anything, it was his fault for piling up too many duties on her to handle all at once.
So, for the near future, that meant Belissar should focus on the Tower’s relationships. King Ratuatapi would soon visit the Tower to finalize the alliance agreement, after which the sigmaka would join the karnuq hunters in challenging the Tower. Belissar hadn’t made any preparations for that sort of thing, so he’d best start thinking about it. There were the karnuq’s experiencing with facing the trials of Sacred Dens and the Tower Guards’ training methods, the Circle’s advice about setting up temples to worship the gods, and then the God of Bees’ own preferences on challengers working for the hives. So, the question was, what exactly should the sigmaka do for their challenges and what rewards should Belissar offer them?
It was not something he could decide on his own, so he headed over to the karnuq settlement and consulted with Chief Rohsuak. She hummed to herself as she considered his questions.
“In my opinion, the God of Bees preferences should take precedence. However, the sigmaka negotiated for the right to send challengers under the assumption they would be facing combat trials of some sort, so I will say you should not remove that aspect entirely. They will want to grow their warriors and will be disappointed if they cannot.”
Belissar crossed his arms and thought for a moment before glancing up at the bee on his head.
“What do you think, Niobee? Is there any way the sigmaka could help work for the hives?”
Niobee buzzed her wings.
“Stop making King feel bad!”
Belissar blinked for a moment while Chief Rohsuak chuckled. He couldn’t help a smile growing on his face even as he shook his head.
“Thanks Niobee, but it’s fine. They aren’t hurting me, even if dealing with them is always complicated. Is there anything else they could do, anything that the bees would want?”
Niobee stopped buzzing and stood still for a bit, her antennae occasionally pulsing with soft light. After a bit, she slowly began to dance.
“Sigmaka have nectar? Can give?”
Belissar’s eyes widened a bit.
“Ah, the aphid honeydew, right? We never did get a regular supply, did we?”
He furrowed his brow.
“So…we just have them bring honeydew to the hives? That’d help the bees but…it doesn’t seem like much of trial?”
He glanced Chief Rohsuak and found her humming to herself once more. After a bit, she glanced up at him.
“Actually, it might. The act of bringing along honeydew may seem simple…but that would depend on where you have them drop it off.”
Belissar tilted his head.
“Where? I mean, just at the shrine at the entrance, right? Otherwise, they’d have to carry it with them further in and they’d get attacked by remnants while…”
Belissar’s eyes slowly began to widen again.
“They’d have to fight their way through. All while trying to protect the honeydew to give to the hives at the end…like how bees have to return to the hive with their nectar…”
Chief Rohsuak smiled at him.
“Indeed. It would be quite the trial. Combat while burdened, all to perform a service to the bees.”