The Bee Dungeon

Back when the new stingless queen had just left for Belissar's Tower, a different stingless queen listened to the report by her scouts before buzzing her wings. She had succeeded, the plan had all come together.

At first, when the domineering queen had ordered her to handle some task for the Flower Tender, she had been annoyed. Because of course the domineering one wouldn’t use her own workers for anything other than growing her own hive, not even for the Flower Tender, and so she had to break off her own workers for the task. If only the Flower Tender had given her a magical palace first, before the domineering one…

However, it was unusual for the Flower Tender to involve herself in bee affairs to begin with, so the queen had been curious as to the reason. She committed her workers to the task without complaint…and had been utterly shocked at what they reported back.

The Flower Tender was showing a new flower tender around a new room she had built…and the new flower tender was attended by true giants. There were two bees larger than entire hives scouting the area, accompanied by a full soldier compliment.

The queen was without pheromones at first. But the report was corroborated several times over, so she had no choice but to accept it as accurate. What sort of bee could grow to such gargantuan size? How much nectar and how many workers did it require to support such a monster? What did that mean for the scale of the hive that had raised them?

But then…the queen had a thought. Nay, an opportunity. At the time the report had been received, hers was the only hive that had observed the new bees. The Flower Tender had told the queen of her plans as well, that she and the new flower tender would be exchanging a queen each. Naturally, the domineering queen intended for one of her own children to fulfill that role and hadn’t told any of the other queens about the exchange. Clearly, the domineering queen had no clue about the nature of the new bees they were about to make contact with. And with reason, who would have expected these bees to be so different? Even the queen had trouble believing the reports her own workers were making, so it was only natural the domineering queen had no way to predict such dramatic differences.

And the queen had kept it that way, reporting nothing out of the ordinary besides the new bees’ general appearance indicating a different species. Oh, questions would eventually be raised about how she had missed such a massive threat…but she could simply say the big bees and the soldiers hadn’t been among the scouts and that she hadn’t been aware of them. It wasn’t like the solitary ones would tell the domineering queen of her deceit and it was strange the new bees were using soldiers to scout in the first place. The domineering queen would certainly be angry…but would have no reason to suspect her lack of information was intentional.

The queen’s scouts had now reported her plan’s success. The domineering queen, under the impression the new bees were no different than any other, had sent off her daughter with a force clearly intended for hostilities, and would act as domineering towards the incoming queen as she had towards all of them. Well, the Flower Tender had told them specifically not to use violence against the new queen, but that didn’t mean the domineering queen would just let her be.

And when the new bees, with the gargantuans they had at their disposal, learned of these things? Well, then the domineering queen might find herself a small bee in a very big hive. And if she were taken down a peg…or removed entirely…that would make some space for the other queens to begin to grow.