POBee 120.2 - Bee-ficient Specialization
The First of the Fifth stood in her home. Her new, spacious home that she was certain was larger than any constructed by any bee in the Beyond. Her new home with rows upon rows of trays, more than her hive could ever fill, that were precisely placed to allow ideal airflow that could be adjusted on a per-tray basis for different processing needs. Her home with numerous entrances that the King had made on her suggestion, allowing her to precisely organize the flow of her workers so that not a single moment would be loss to confusion or traffic jams.
Before she knew it, she had started another happy dance. But she caught herself and stopped. While the new palace certainly deserved the celebration, she had another task at present. She was currently standing before her new children, a line of queens watching her with just a hint of confusion over her sudden outburst. She gathered herself with just the slightest twitch of her antennae before dancing.
“All daughters should focus on workers for now. Will provide honey to do so. Will assign brood tenders to help. Will also assign tasks, and workers. Queens should listen to workers and get used to tasks so can do once own workers ready. Understand?”
“Yes, Queen Mother!”
Once she was satisfied with their response, she turned to one of the queens.
“Second Daughter, build in sector one. Job is to arrange honey delivery to other hives. Need to grow and raise soldiers for this.”
The new queen saluted and then the First of the Fifth’s workers led her to her assigned trays while the First of the Fifth turned to the next.
“Third Daughter, build in sector five. Job is to investigate new honey processing methods. Will need to scout dangerous karnuq. Work with scouts, they will explain.”
Her third daughter danced an unsteady salute, apparently confused about the order. The First of the Fifth would follow up and explain in more detail. She would also need to determine if her daughters could connect to her scouts via communers, or if they would need scouts and communers of their own. In truth, the First of the Fifth was unsure about handing this task off. She currently only knew about the possibility of processing already finished honey, but had not made any progress on the details, so the only instruction she could give was to watch the dangerous karnuq for clues. However, there were, at present, just too many draws on the First of the Fifth’s attention, and this task would require a great deal of time and focus. It would require extensively monitoring the dangerous karnuq for clues, and then likely many failed attempts to map out new production methods from that knowledge. It, simply, required more attention and time than the First of the Fifth was willing to spend on it, though the possibilities were too great to simply pass up. So, she would have one of her daughters take up the mantle, and trust that her offspring would be up to the task.