Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire - Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Hard work can move mountains
The work camp was built like a miniature beehive. Safely hidden inside its cave from roaming kaijus, it hosted 10000 bees inside.

Foremen Bees and Forager Bees flew in and out with their hauls of nectar and pollen, Builder Bees maintained the structure, Cleaning Bees cleaned it…

But most of the bees, which were drafted from Foremen and Forager Bees, were swarming with their digging sticks near the future channel side. Their leader in this place, Chief Foreman B9381, was hovering in the air next to me.

We looked toward the spanning river. It had sloping, grassy banks, and it was hard to tell where the water ended and solid ground began.

‘I bet this river floods terribly after every storm,’ I thought.

“We are ready to dig, Father! But where from and to?” she asked me.

“We will start… A safe distance away from this river.” I pointed past it, toward a nearby pillar mountain. “There! Let’s put sticks into the ground to draw the edges of the channel.”

Soon, the Worker Bees under my command made a rough outline of a 10-meters wide channel. Its depth was going to be “two bees tall”, or around 3 meters.

Its estimated length was going to be three kilometers. The final measuring sticks were put right in front of the yellow meadow ants’ anthill. They still didn’t care about bees until they stepped too close to them.

A colossal project, especially for workers with only stone tools.

‘This will take a while… A couple weeks *at least*, I bet. But that’s alright, I will *definitely* pull the lifespan gene at the next development level. And I only have 65 points left to go.’

“Alright-y! Get to work, everybody! Raise your sticks and BRING THEM DOWN!” Chief Foreman shouted. She had iron lungs—her voice carried all over.

Bees echoed her words like a chant.

“Bring them down! BRING! THEM! DOWN!”

Thousands of bees spread across the marked ground. There were so many of them that they covered five hundred meters of length at once, even standing side by side. It was a line of bees that stretched into the horizon!

They all dug into the ground, bringing up clumps of grass, dirt, and rocks, and throwing them to the sides of the channel. 8000 workers…

The construction progressed with incredible speed! It was like the ground was melting under the endless blows of the digging sticks!

I stood, gaping, while Chief Foreman B9381 flew from one part of the digging site to another, shouting encouragement and looking out for predators.

But what predator would attack 8000 bees? No one was so suicidal.

The noise of bees’ voices and actions spooked away everyone before they could even see the bees themselves!

‘Perhaps this won’t take as much time as I feared. Uh… Maybe just a week of work?’

***

Three days later, Chief Foreman B9381 found me at the hive.

“Father, we’ve finished digging! As you instructed, we didn’t dig directly toward the river, but we are ready to do this whenever you command! It won’t take more than a few hours.”

My jaw fell.

“Two days?.. Girls, you are incredible. We must prepare Commando Bees for the raid on the yellow meadow ants immediately!”

“Immediately” turned into a day of preparations. Even Ambrosia and Pollenia came to watch, although I felt like neither was very interested in the happenings outside the hive.

On the morning of the ‘Project Great Flood’, they even came to send me off.

“Stay away from large hunters, Nectus,” Ambrosia said. “At least there will be a lot of bees to protect you.”

“Even Mother says that it’s weird that you always fly outside instead of staying home…” Pollenia said. Today, she was sulking. “When I have my own Drones, I won’t *ever* let them leave the hive!”

I grinned and aggressively rubbed her hair.

“Well, when you do, then you can tell me all about it, Polly! But you won’t fly anywhere until we make animal husbandry.”

Pollenia bowed her head and raised her shoulders, but didn’t fly away.

“Faaaaaather… And when this happens? I thought I should’ve left the hive as soon as possible.”

“You don’t even know all the math and words that I do, Pollenia,” Ambrosia said. “Be patient. You will need knowledge in your hive.”

I nodded eagerly and gave Ambrosia a twin thumbs-up.

“Yeah, you can say that again, Amby! Now… See you again, girls—this evening, if things go well, or maybe tomorrow. Bye!”

I gave Ambrosia a goodbye kiss and flew off.

***

“Raise your digging sticks! BRING THEM DOWN!”

“BRING THEM DOWN!”

“Mind the water!” I added.

“MIND THE WATER!” Chief Foreman B9381 echoed.

Before me, 8000 bees gathered to dig the last meters left toward the river. Behind them was the freshly dug channel.

It appeared as if by magic. Magic of lots of workers working really hard!

They ate these meters of dirt like they were nothing. In no time at all, the first digging stick hit the wet soil.

The first rivulets of water flowed from the water toward the channel.

“Get away!” I shouted at the workers still digging near the river. “Don’t drown!”

My bees flew up. From above, we all watched the water pour into our channel. The more water flew, the more it washed down the remaining dirt walls between the channel and the river, and the wider the flow became.

Soon, murky water was flowing freely toward the yellow meadow ants’ anthill! The channel’s shores were rapidly washed down by the flow of water, but it was still deep enough to carry water forth.

<Congratulations! You’ve unlocked ‘Irrigation’ technology!>

〔Irrigation〕

Brainpower requirement: 120

Removes penalties for living away from water sources.

Allows farming in dry soil.

Greatly increases logistics in conjunction with methods of travel over water.

〔〕〔〕〔〕

I laughed.

Not because of the technology, but because of the pure wonder created by the hands of my bees—a miniature river! Nature, twisted by hard work and human intelligence, was about to crush the weak ants and bring to me the fruits of their labor!