Chapter 124: A New Round of New-Bees
The Fourth of the Eighth stood in front of a cell in her hive. The cell was crackling, with tiny-lightnings occasionally crossing the wax cover and zapping any bee that got too close. It was not particularly popular among her workers, but the Fourth of the Eighth couldn’t take her eyes off of it.
The honey made by the soldiers was…strange. It looked like honey, acted like honey, and tasted like honey. By all accounts, it was honey. And yet…there was something ephemeral about it. Quite literally. On her first attempts to store it, she found the honey evaporated away if left alone for too long. Mana compromised far more of its structure than mana honey made by the normal process, and so would unravel over time.
It was a problem, as the honey needed to last long enough for an egg to hatch and a larva to morph into full adult worker. The Fourth of the Eighth had to conduct numerous experiments to get it to work. Adding more mana to the honey extended its lifespan but with diminishing returns, and adding too much would only accelerate its decomposition. Mixing it with regular honey just diluted them both until the lightning honey faded away. Eventually, she had her workers consume it outright and reprocess it. This managed to produce a stable honey with some amount of tiny lightnings, but in far lower quantities than the original lightning honey. It was also unpleasant for her workers, many of whom continued to tremble even after finishing the process.
But it had succeeded, and, with time and effort, they had managed to accumulate enough to fill a worker cell. The very cell she now watched with every moment she had to spare.
Had it been enough? Had they provided enough honey for a worker to grow? Had they maintained enough of the lightning to change the worker? Would the egg and the larva survive growing in such honey? Would any of these efforts have any payoff?
She did not know. She couldn’t, until the brood growing with this cell finally stirred…or failed to. It had already spent longer under its cap than a normal worker, causing the Fourth of the Eighth to pace around. She knew from speaking with some of the other queens that bees raised on special honeys took longer to grow, but she could not help but worry. Just when would this worker…
She paused. She thought…she saw the cap shift a bit. But she fluttered her wings and then groomed her antennae. She had been deceived before, but every previous time it had simply been a trick of the light, the shadow of a passing worker.
Until she saw it again.
Her eyes instantly locked to the spot in question. There, she saw cracks form in the wax cover as it bulged out slightly.