Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire - Chapter 253

Chapter 253: Problem identified
I passed Thingmover-49 to the line of variously sick people waiting when a Physician could see them and immediately dashed off to poke my nose all over this place.

Several times people stopped me, asking for help with this thing or another, but I always replied with, “Sorry, I’m on my way to…” naming whatever other place I thought about at the time.

Like this, I saw all the stages of processing patients from diagnosis to their recovery—or failure at it.

Diagnosis was at least less sloppy here than in health inspections. Physicians took care asking questions, checking for symptoms, and even asking for notes from the archives to compare symptoms with known ones.

Still, way too many illnesses were categorized as “yet unknown” and sent into one of the many quarantine rooms. Consulting with archives also took a lot of time, while often not yielding any resources, anyway.

I couldn’t go to quarantine, but I saw the common sick rooms—places for non-contagious patients, which mostly meant work or battle injuries.

There, things were worse.

I winced when a bee screamed because a Physician was setting her broken bone and putting a splint on it. Ideally, the injured bee would be given an herb that induced sleepiness and reduced pain—but I understood it wasn’t available everywhere.

But proper hygiene *was*!

I stared with horror and disgust as a Physician washed her hands with cold water after the procedure, *without any soap*!

And was this even *clean* water? It looked used already! A breeding ground for bacteria!

I kept watching for more infraction of proper procedures, while focusing on thoughts of bees to hear why they were doing this when they were *taught* not to!

A while later, I saw a pattern, and it pointed me toward the answer.

A part of it was the lack of resources. Not a *real* lack—I knew we could send more. But Hive Supremo wasn’t *asked* for more. It felt like the leadership of Hive Clay-Hole just didn’t want to show that they needed more than they were given already.

The other, bigger part was the general dullness of many locals.

My newly dominant genes had improved the average population of the Bee Empire, and all the eggs laid since my return from the divine dimension grew into strong, healthy and *smart* bees.

But this hive’s population, especially its specialists, had a lot of immigrants from other hives. Older bees, most of which only had 75 intelligence because of partial inheritance of my genes.

They had the necessary education to be Physicians, but often they did things without understanding why they should do them. Or why they should *not*.

And the sick bees themselves weren’t helping either! They just wanted to get back to work, and unless they were dying, they didn’t consider it too important.

Typical bee mindset, impossible to fully destroy despite all my attempts to!

After that, I decided I had spent enough time in the hospital. The smells there began making me queasy, and the bees working inside began wondering why I was hanging around while doing so little and being so tall.

I went on to get my bodyguards, their findings, and a meal.

***

Everything on my list was brought together in one of the hive’s mess halls.

The mess halls were a thing since the invention of cooking. The structure of it was much like an ordinary mess hall in some school on Earth.

A large food giving area was at one side, with dozens of cooks putting hundreds of portions not even on tables, but just on long straw mats rolled on the floor. Large clay jugs at the side held drinking water, and clean dishes were waiting on the side.

Bees also ate on the floor or took food with them. The furniture clearly wasn’t too plentiful in the hive, unlike the food.

At least there everybody was free to take what they wanted to. Most of the food available was meat, but I saw some eggs, bread-stuffs and honey.

Knowing that the meat most likely belonged to flies, I took a couple of buns for myself, while my bodyguards piled their dishes with meat. Everybody ate with their hands, and I could only tell for myself that I washed mine beforehand.

The mess hall was noisy enough that any conversation automatically became a private one here; but I still spoke telepathically just to not have to shout, and shoved pieces of pollen bread under my mask to eat.

What my bodyguards shared with me showed that the problems I found amid Physicians were shared in various ways almost everywhere!

A lot of the technologies or work protocols were missed or ignored because of sheer stupidity. I knew that the logistical system of this hive had to have entire holes in it.

It was the local Queen’s fault, of course—but only to an extent. If anything, it was my and Ambrosia’s fault because we were those who trained these Queens.

“This place is so *unorganized* compared to Hive Supremo,” Destroyer said in conclusion of this discussion.

“Yeah.” I nodded in full agreement. “It was inevitable, but this just proves that I should’ve seen it coming. So many major and minor improvements were made in Hive Supremo that bees in other places just can’t catch up with them all! Hive Supremo goes forward, while the rest of places… mostly follow, but some parts fall behind. They live in the previous technological era!”

And I thought that their lower production rates compared to Hive Supremo’s were just a consequence of the purer genetics of the bees from sub-hives, so I didn’t look too deeply into it…

“So you’ve found all you wanted to find, Father?” Destroyer asked. “Are we going to return to Hive Supremo?”

I nodded.

“Yes. Our education system needs a lot of improvement. Local schools and teachers are clearly not enough. The education must be centralized for specialists of all kinds, and Queens must learn to give better reports. Oh, and…”

I tore off my face mask, then took a deep breath.

“Finally! I was going to die in this thing!”