Chapter 48: Chapter 43 Bee Swarm i
Translator: 549690339
The young worker ant was dragged out by Fourth.
It still lay there, barely moving, but its antennae were more agile than the day before after consuming the banyan tree blood, capable of waving freely now.
Its abdomen had acquired a layer of light green color, and it was spreading to its hind legs and waist.
No other noticeable changes could be seen for the time being.
As long as it’s not dead, al! is well.
“Alright, Fourth, drag it back!1‘
Qin Niu didn’t experiment with other termites but instead rewarded them with a piece of bear meat.
He felt like he was disrupting the dietary habits of this group of termites, who would normally prefer tree trunks, tender leaves, and plant roots. Now, they were either eating bear meat or centipedes.
So far, Qin Niu had only found that feeding them bear blood and bear meat could produce strong termites.
Feeding them centipedes would result in poisonous ants.
After feeding them the bear meat and communicating with the termites for a while, his proficiency in the insect language had increased slightly.
Although the progression was slow, he didn’t mind.
As he practiced the Everlasting Spring Technique, he could feel that his spiritual power seemed to have slightly increased. Before, he would feel his head grow heavy and his spiritual power depleted after close communication with the termites about thirty to forty times.
Now, he could communicate with them around forty to fifty times.
However, the distance couldn’t be too great; it was best to be able to see them while communicating. That’s because if the distance was too far, the consumption of spiritual power with each communication would greatly increase.
When he felt it was about right, Qin Niu shouldered his basket and started wandering around the mountains.
He had two low-grade contract charms on his person and had learned the Green Demon’s beekeeping scripture, acquiring many extremely practical bee-taming skills. He wanted to see if he could find a suitable wild bee to subdue.
Based on his experience with taming termites, basically all Grade One insects were easy to tame.
As soon as they advanced to Grade Two, the difficulty of taming them would increase by more than tenfold.
To tame a wild bee, he definitely needed to find a female bee that hadn’t laid eggs.
As for whether to choose honeybees, hornets, bear bees, or wood bees, he hadn’t yet decided.
He planned to first observe and understand their habits and characteristics before making a decision.
As he continued to explore deeper into the mountains, the ancient banyan tree came into his sight again, looking from a distance like a dense forest.
The expression one tree makes a forest” referred to such ancient trees that had lived for hundreds or even a thousand years.
They had experienced at least a few hundred years of growth and expansion, completely crushing the plants around them and dominating that area.
In their shade, the plants beneath either slowly withered or lived in dependence, barely surviving.
The human world is much the same as the plant world.
For example, the villagers of Shuangfeng Village and those from the surrounding villages were all living uneasily under the shadow of the Yan Family.
Yan Family was the largest tree’ among the nearby villages.
Now it was broad daylight, bright and sunny, so Qin Niu wasn’t afraid of that ancient banyan tree.
Instead, he observed it from a distance.
From afar, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
But as he moved closer, he realized how clever the ancient banyan tree really was. The plants neighboring it were not affected at all.
This camouflage was too clever.
It did not let one notice any danger, and by the time one did, they were already within the canopy of the tree.
Having been tricked once before, Qin Niu stopped walking when he was about forty to fifty meters away.
From a distance, he could see some weeds and small bushes growing under the banyan tree.
As for anything else, it was completely invisible.
One had to enter to actually see its sturdy trunk.
“Buzz-!”
Qin Niu heard the sound of an insect fluttering its wings in his ears, resembling that of a bee.
Looking towards the sound, indeed, there was a bee.
It was gathering pollen on an unknown small plant.
The plant was blooming with tiny white flowers no bigger than grains of rice; besides bees, even humans passing by would probably not notice it.
Nature is so magical that, no matter how small, as long as something exists, it will be noticed by other creatures.
The stem of that plant was too thin.
When a bee landed on its flower to collect pollen, it couldn’t bear the weight of the bee, and the branch immediately bent. The bee had to vigorously flap its wings to stabilize itself.
Its pollen collection technique was quite skillful, and it swiftly completed this challenging task.
You could see that its hind legs were already laden with quite a bit of pollen.
After collecting the pollen from one small white flower, it didn’t fly away but continued to the next one.
Because it needed to stabilize itself by constantly flapping its wings, the buzzing was exceptionally clear.
Qin Niu quietly approached it, carefully observing the bee collect pollen.
It landed on the blossom and worked hard with its three pairs of legs to sweep up pollen from the flower. It was very dexterous in its movements, first using its mandibles and forelegs together to scrape off the pollen.
Then it caught it with its midlegs.
Next, the midlegs brushed off rhe pollen that was stuck on the hairs of its chest and abdomen and passed it to its hind legs.
Then its two hind legs kept alternating their tasks.
The hind legs were very broad, and according to the Green Demon Bee Culture Techniques, on the hind legs there were pollen combs, pollen presses, and pollen baskets.
The hind legs first caught the pollen passed on by the midlegs with the pollen combs, then used the pollen presses to squeeze the pollen on the combs, compressing the previously sandy pollen into clumps, and finally pushed them into the pollen baskets on the hind legs.
The entire process of collecting pollen was quite ingenious, and the technique was excellent.
Qin Niu watched with relish.
You could see that its hind legs were now filled with pale yellow pollen balls, looking like two large clumps of pollen stuck to its hind legs.
Buzz buzz buzz!
It vibrated its wings and took off.
“Is it heading back to the hive?”
Qin Niu quickly followed it.
However, after following for less than twenty meters, Qin Niu immediately stopped in his tracks.
The Ancient Banyan Tree was up ahead; if he were to barge in carelessly, he would instantly get trapped inside.
Could this bee be a lure sent out by the Ancient Banyan Tree?
Qin Niu quickly realized he was overthinking it. Almost next to the Ancient Banyan Tree stood a rather tail pine tree, upon which hung a huge beehive.
By the looks of it, there must have been thousands of bees living inside.
You could see bees flying in and our, a busy scene.
Bees and ants are both very industrious small insects.
They are united, hardworking, and both are social creatures.
“If I knocked down their nest, rd surely get a lot of honey.”
Qin Niu licked his lips.
There were people in the village who kept bees, and they could harvest honey two or three times a year. The price was quite expensive, almost costing three Wen Money per jin. You know, a hive of bees can yield over a hundred jins of mature honey in a year.
Keeping a box of bees could increase one’s income by more than three hundred Wen Money a year.
However, not many people bought honey, and only villagers who were slightly better off would buy a couple of jins a year. They would only be willing to use it during the holidays and festivals.
Families like Wang Furen and Xu Zhenchang, who were mildly wealthy, were the main consumers.
They would eat as much as they wanted, without worrying about this small expense.
As for the Yan Family, they wouldn’t buy any because they had their own beekeepers who were responsible for beekeeping and honey harvesting.
The Yan Family also had some gifting needs, but regular honey certainly wouldn’t cut it.
They would have their hired beekeepers collect Royal Jelly, which they would then keep to give to powerful figures in the city.
Yan Ruohai and his direct relatives and wife probably ate Royal Jelly, not ordinary honey.
Qin Niu’s eyes were fixed on the beehive in the tree as he carefully recalled some bee-rearing techniques from the Green Demon Bee Culture Techniques in his mind.
If he were to take control, he definitely could only subdue a new Queen Bee..
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