Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire - Chapter 38

Chapter 38: A funeral song and dance
My euphoria dimmed drastically when I was faced by the rivers of blood and piles of corpses back in the hive.

It also reminded me that a lot of my bees were wounded.

“Shit. Forget what I just said—we need to do *some* work first. But not your usual work! There needs to be some organizing done before we all can rest. And keep alert for more hornets! They might still appear.”

I looked at the mass of bees near me, but it was impossible to tell how many and which bees were present.

“All Sergeant Craftsmen, Sergeant Warriors and Sergeant Material Foragers—count their subordinates and report to me or Ambrosia! Chiefs for Foremen Bees. Chief Foremen, you too!”

With that, I flew back into the hive. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I was swept off my feet by Ambrosia.

She pulled me into a hug with more open affection than I’ve ever got from the stoic woman. Ambrosia was smiling at me with palpable relief, while pressing her (naked, let me remind you! The clothes weren’t invented yet!) chest right into mine.

Of course, I immediately hugged her back, buried my nose in her hair, and breathed in her sweet, sweet smell.

“Finally, this is over. So many bees died today, but the colony survived—and so did we. Now we only need to recover,” she said.

“Yes… We need to organize… stuff,” I mumbled. “Don’t wanna. Don’t wanna even think about it, Amby. It’s gonna be sad again.”

Ambrosia stroked my back gently.

“Our daughters will manage without us—Cleaning Bees already know that the bodies need to be disposed of. Our main job right now is to recover our lost numbers. Come on, let’s mate. That makes you smile more every time, doesn’t it?”

She pulled me after her, and I even made two steps before my upper head took control.

“No, wait! They *won’t* manage! Only some Warrior Bees know basic medicine—someone has to teach the rest and do first aid! Plus, to count our losses… And what if more hornets appear, after all? Oh-oh-oh…”

Ambrosia stopped and leaned over me. Her face was unsympathetic, but she was patting my head like I was a cat.

“Fine. If you say so… but then, we *will* mate, Nectus. For the hive!”

I coughed, staring at the pair of massive, full of delicious royal jelly breasts *right in front of my nose*.

“Right. Sure. For the hive!”

***

Instead of gathering pollen and nectar, today everybody was gathering bodies. They had to be either buried, or moved far enough away to not attract any more predators to our hive.

The second was easier, so that was what I ordered. Material Foragers were having a field day with all the bones they were scavenging.

We lost 713 Foremen Bees, 52 Warrior Bees, and several dozen various non-titular bees. The Foremen Bees were the first to fight hornets off, so they took the brunt of our losses. Craftsmen and Material Foragers, on the contrary, barely fought at all.

There were no more appearances of hornets. Without their hive and queen, they were doomed to die off. With each hour no new hornets appeared, the entire hive felt calmer.

I’ve promoted some bees to fill the lost hierarchy ranks, and spread the knowledge of washing wounds and doing other first aid.

Thankfully, most bees had only bruises. In that fight, it was either bruises and scrapes, or quick death. Still, there was enough that the colony’s wellness dropped to 71%!

It was bad. How much? Well…

<The wellness parameter reflects the overall wellness of your colony’s populace. When this parameter is low, it means that many of the colony’s citizens suffer various ailments.>

More wellness was better than less wellness, and that was all the explanations I had.

But I explained the basics of medicine (wash wounds with clean water, smear them with honey to disinfect, put over wax or plant leaves to stop the bleeding), and it helped.

<Congratulations! You’ve implemented a ‘Primitive Medicine’ technology in your colony. You gain 5 development points.>

〔Primitive Medicine〕

Brainpower requirement: 15

Wellness: +0,2% per 1 thousand populace with access to healthcare.

Resilience: +0,2 per 1 thousand populace with access to healthcare.

〔〕〔〕〔〕

This boosted the colony’s stats back up. In my colony, everybody had healthcare—the honey was available to all!

Very communist.

〔Your colony〕

〔Wellness〕: 76 %

〔Population〕: 24 thousand

〔Development level〕: 2

〔Development points〕: 56 / 100

〔Species〕: Common Honey Bee

〔Attributes〕

> Workpower: 28

> Military: 14

> Brainpower: 98

> Logistics: 22

> Resilience: 14

〔Resources〕:

> Food: 429 units

> Building materials: 43 units

〔Technologies〕

Dance Communication, Hive Building, Food Preservation, Stone Hammers, Forager Posts, Rank-Based Hierarchy, Primitive Containers, Border Patrols, Primitive Knives, Primitive String, Fire, Candles, Primitive Spiked Armor, Primitive Medicine

〔〕〔〕〔〕

It took an entire day to clean up all the blood from the floor, even with thousands of bees carrying water in wax jugs.

But by evening, everybody gathered in the hive together. I stood in front of 24 thousand bees and gave a speech.

It was a celebration, but also a memorial.

“Today was a sad day, because many lives were lost; but also a happy day, because the colony lives on. And your dead sisters wouldn’t want us to be sad, anyway. No… They’d point fingers at me and say, ‘Father is being weird again!’. Just like the last time!”

I sniffed. Ambrosia stroked my shoulder sympathetically.

“There’s a tradition in another place to dance when somebody dies, so that dead people know we are happy here and aren’t sad on our behalf. I know this all goes all over your heads right now, girls, but I told you that I was going to teach you dancing. And I will! Dancing and singing.”

I walked out into the circle of curiously watching bees. They were giving me performance jitters… Thankfully, the right melody was ingrained in my mind and impossible to forget, even in another world.

“Now watch and repeat after me! This is a funeral song and dance of my people! Tut dududut dut dut dududu dududu, tududu dudu dudu, tududu dudu dudu~”

I waved my hands and shook my hips. My daughters did their best to copy, and then one by one began echoing my song.

In a minute, the hive was shaking again from the force of our voices.

“TUT DUDUDUT DUT DUT DUDUDU DUDUDU, TUDUDU DUDU DUDU, TUDUDU DUDU DUDU~”