Chapter 49 - 44 Comprehending Bee Language i
Unlike the nuptial flight of ants and termites, there are three ways for honey bees to produce a new queen bee.
One way is when the queen bee feels she is getting old and needs a successor, she will lay fully developed female eggs, which are fed royal jelly from a young age. Another way is when the bee colony grows so large that it needs to split, the queen bee will also reproduce a new queen.
The last method is quite special.
The queen bee doesn’t get the chance to reproduce a new queen and dies either naturally or from an enemy attack.
At this time, if the bee colony unexpectedly loses its queen and the conditions are right, it can use appropriately aged worker bee larvae to urgently construct a royal cell to rear a new queen.
What if the emergency construction of a royal cell fails?
It’s a bit tragic then.
Incompletely developed worker bees can also lay eggs, but they can only produce male bees, and the entire bee colony will perish.
There is a certain limit to the number of insects an Insect Master can tame.
This is related to the strength of the Insect Master’s spiritual power. However, compared to a Beast Tamer, an Insect Master has a clear advantage in the number of pets they can tame.
Most Beast Tamers can only tame one beast pet due to inadequate spiritual power.
The more powerful the beast pet, the higher the demand for the spiritual power of the Beast Tamer during taming.
With weak spiritual power, the success rate of taming powerful beasts like wolves, tigers, and bears will be terrifyingly low. And even those Beast Tamers with slightly stronger spiritual power can often only tame one powerful beast pet.
If they try for more, the failure rate of taming increases significantly, and they also can’t afford it.
Keeping a wolf might look prestigious, but the amount of meat it requires every day could bankrupt a modestly wealthy family like Wang Furen’s.
Qin Niu’s practice of the Everlasting Spring Technique enhances spiritual power, which is a significant advantage.
Now, still in the first realm, the main focus is on nourishing qi and blood and strengthening the physical body. Even so, he could still feel his spiritual power growing.
If he were to reach the second realm, the increase in spiritual power would be extremely terrifying.
Therefore, he hardly ever has to worry about not having enough spiritual power due to taming too many insects.
Also, the cost of raising insects is extremely low.
Raising that nest of termites is almost zero cost to keep.
Raising another hive of bees, if he continues to practice free-range apiculture, will also have nearly no cost to keep.
His purpose in beekeeping differs from that of Green Demon.
Green Demon kept bees as a means for revenge, while his primary reason for beekeeping is the quest for longevity.
Bees are an important medium for plant pollination.
If he could cultivate a special breed of bee colony, it might help him improve his planting skills. He could even direct the bee colony to collect some special pollen to make honey, which would be a hundred or even a thousand times more precious than royal jelly.
He read in a book that an Insect Master had built his fortune this way and had even managed to enter a sect.
Besides, because of their excellent flying ability, the bee colony can do many things for him.
Such as guarding, delivering messages, and aerial attacks.
Qin Niu was observing the beehive from a distance of several meters.
One particularly magical phenomenon was that despite the myriad bees coming and going, not one flew into the coverage area of the Ancient Banyan Tree.
It truly seemed that all things under heaven and earth have a spirit.
They were right at the edge of the Ancient Banyan Tree yet treated the area it covered as forbidden territory.
The termites went under the banyan tree and successfully rescued Qin Niu.
But would the bees be able to come out if they went in?
After observing for a while, he took out Green Demon’s beekeeping manual to study again.
Upon reading the book a hundred times, its meaning will naturally reveal itself.
The beekeeping manual left by Green Demon before his death is full of ingenious ideas, all of which have been verified by experiment.
This invaluable beekeeping experience could save Qin Niu from taking many detours.
It could even inspire him to apply the principles to the cultivation of other insects.
Staying in the mountains, nearly a whole day had passed.
He had been quietly observing the bees but had not approached them. If he got too close now, the bees would immediately come out and sting him into a pigheaded mess.
Having spent the whole day there, in addition to learning a lot from the beekeeping manual, he had also learned to distinguish the sounds made by the bees.
He was learning the Bee Language.
He didn’t expect to master it in one day and planned to come back here tomorrow.
With his reasonably good strength, ordinary wolves, bears, and wild boars in the mountains shouldn’t threaten his safety. If they dared to come, they would likely end up as an extra meal for Qin Niu.
As for a tiger, it’s uncertain whether he could win a fight against one. He had never tried.
With the Treasured Sword in hand and his cultivation nearing the human Onefold level 80, he was bold enough to fight a fierce tiger.
Seeing that evening was approaching and the Ancient Banyan Tree looked even more sinister and frightening, he stopped lingering and began to collect humus soil, preparing to carry a basket down the mountain to continue tormenting Wang Haikun.
He wanted to make it so that whenever Mr. Wang saw his humus soil, he would be scared.
If you want to buy fertilizer without spending money, this special fertilizer is the only option. Guaranteed to make your crops yellow and fail to produce.
“Wow, that’s a huge spider.”
While collecting humus soil, Qin Niu spotted a brightly colored spider. It had green and white patterns interwoven and was the size of an adult’s thumb.
Perhaps at dusk, they began to come out to guard their webs and search for food.
He could see the white spider silk it spat out was thick and sturdy.
Ordinary flying insects that landed on the web were likely doomed.
This spider was about as thick as an adult’s thumb, not counting its eight long legs.
The spiders in the mountains were generally poisonous.
Some poisons were so potent that a single bite could cause instant death.
As he was observing the spider, a bee gathering pollen hurriedly flew by.
The bee’s pollen-gathering technique might not have been mastered yet, as there was only a small amount of pollen in the baskets on its hind legs.
Even as dusk approached, it was still buzzing its antennae around in search of flowers.
They had a natural talent for detecting the scent of flowers.
They could sense the faintest fragrance from miles away.
Bang!
It was unlucky and did not notice the spider’s ‘Bagua formation’ web. It crashed right into it.
Qin Niu thought to himself, this was bad, as the bee seemed to be lightly colored, clearly an inexperienced and tender newcomer worker bee.
Not only was its pollen-gathering skill terrible, but it also lacked any experience in outdoor adventure.
The large spider perched on the web was completely unnoticed by it.
Now, it was caught and hanging on the web.
The large spider, just starting its work, caught a big catch, much to its delight.
It immediately began to crawl over to wrap the prey in a deathly cocoon or deliver a spider’s kiss.
Spiders hunted very cautiously; they would judge the strength of their prey by the force of its impact on the web and the vigor of its struggles.
If they encountered a strong prey in the web, they would patiently wait.
Moreover, as long as the spider had enough energy in its silk glands, the webs they spun were at least double-threaded.
Some formidable large spiders would pull not just one, but over seven threads from their tails. You should know that scientists have proved the strength of spider silk surpasses that of special-grade steel wire.
And in terms of corrosion resistance and elasticity, it is even more powerful than special-grade steel wire.
Pulling out seven threads at a time, and combining them into one, it’s unimaginable how terrifying the strength of the spider silk was.
It wasn’t clear how many threads this spider could pull out at once, but generally, the minimum was two, one of which could also be called their safety rope.
After all, they worked at great heights, and there were always times they would slip and fall.
If they had a ‘safety rope’ tied around them, they could avoid accidents at critical moments.
This was also why they could immediately climb back up along the silk after falling.
They always had a safety rope tied to them.
The poor newbie bee was about to be devoured by the giant spider’s venomous kiss.
Just one bite, and after the venom was injected into its body, the bee was pretty much beyond saving.
Qin Niu took action, having already planned to kill the spider to feed to the termites, he naturally wouldn’t let it do any more harm before its death.
With a light flick of a small stick, he knocked it to the ground.
Before it could escape, he pressed its head flat with a medicinal hoe.
Its eight long legs struggled for a moment, then slowly gathered and stopped moving.
After confirming it was dead, Qin Niu collected it into a small jar. He would take it over to feed the termites later.
Having fed them four centipedes, it was time for a change of taste, to see if feeding them a poisonous spider could enhance their toxicity.
The bee didn’t realize it had encountered a savior and was saved.
It was still frantically struggling in terror.
But the spider web was very sticky, and the more it struggled, the tighter it wrapped itself.
Qin Niu did not rush to rescue it, but instead listened intently to the buzzing sound it made.
It was a very urgent and low-frequency sound of vibrating wings.
At this moment, it must have been panicking, with its two antennae waving wildly and its six legs struggling desperately. Sadly, it had no chance of breaking the silk with its strength.
“Is this a distress signal to the swarm?”
Qin Niu carefully compared it with other buzzing sounds he had heard from bees before.
After struggling for a while, it stopped.
Had it given up?
After a while, it started to struggle again, emitting that urgent, low-pitched sound even more frantically than before.
It is said that low-frequency sounds can travel farther.
It seemed desperate to call its companions for rescue.
[You have gained insight into Bee Language, your proficiency in Insect Language has increased by +10.]
He was stunned for a moment, then his face lit up with a happy and surprised smile.
He had planned to come back tomorrow to continue listening to the buzzing of the hive, but a small accident had allowed him to grasp the basics of Bee Language..