Belissar clasped hands with Tarwantrad as she mentioned and thought about sending the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s Third Daughter to her. That...was a bit of a mouthful but the bees didn’t seem to mind so neither did Belissar.

    He felt the Tower’s mana withdraw from the bee and for a moment regretted his decision, only for mana to connect to the stingless bees Tarwantrad provided him as well.

    10,432 monsters transferred.

    8,768 monsters received.

    Belissar looked to the stingless hive, currently balled up around their queen. He guessed that, like Velebee previously, they were intimidated by his other bees, so he moved to introduce them and ease her concerns.

    “Hi, I’m Belissar, welcome to my Tower! Let me introduce you to everyone and we’ll get you set up with a hive...they like beehouses, right?”

    He glanced over at Tarwantrad, who nodded with a smile, before turning his attention back to the bee. Fortunately, it seemed to work as the queen crawled out of the ball and onto his hand. The Fourth of the Seventh and the First of Fifth’s First Daughter came to greet her. The queen seemed even more frightened than Velebee had been at that, but the Fourth of the Seventh was one of the friendliest queens in the Tower so Belissar figured it would work out.

    His smile dropped, however, as he watched the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s dance with the new queen grow more intense...followed by all of his queens suddenly scrambling back to their hives. Niobee took off from his head and danced before him before he could ask what was wrong.

    “King! New queen says new hive not as nice, queens want to prepare First of Fifth’s First Daughter’s Third Daughter! Can?”

    Belissar’s eyes widened and he quickly nodded...before remembering he had technically transferred the bee over. He looked over to Tarwantrad. Her face was scrunched up but she nodded back. He gave the ok to Niobee then turned to Tarwantrad once Niobee zipped off to help coordinate the preparations.

    “You know what’s going on?”

    Tarwantrad made a complicated expression.

    “I think I do. I was not as involved with my bees as you are with yours, I figured if I let them be they would live as they would out in nature. The thing is...nature can be brutal at times. My bees have fought with one another before...and even gone as far as war between hives.”

    Tarwantrad led the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s Third Daughter to the beehouse she had prepared in the nursery room...along with her now much larger, much more well-supplied and heavily armed swarm. And the Fourth of the Seventh accompanying her, along with all the workers and soldiers that accompanied said queen.

    She...had a lot to think about regarding her bees. It was one thing to let the bees be bees when the vast majority of them were mundane. But her stingless bees had recently become monsters...a fact that Tarwantrad had honestly overlooked. Even with plants, which were less active as a rule, the more complex monsters had to be handled with care and a level of involvement others did not require. She would never leave an alraune to their own devices, for example, so she may have been foolish in doing so with her monster stingless bees.

    To hammer in the point, Belissar’s tower starkly demonstrated just how far monster bees could deviate from their instincts, especially if encouraged to do so. Tarwantrad herself had done something similar with her flowers, building networks of plants that worked together, but had completely left her bees to their own impulses. She hung her head at that thought. She now understood why the God of Bees had not approached her first. She had been content to leave her bees as they were. Belissar had striven to help them become better. She had a lot to learn, it seemed.

    But this was no time for regrets. She was about to introduce a hive from Belissar’s Tower into her own, bringing two sets of wildly different bees into contact with one another. That was an event that had the potential to upset entire ecosystems and so one she could not ignore. She did not even want to imagine what a war between her bees and one of Belissar’s hives might look like, which is why she had already forbidden violence towards the new bee, in addition to her desire to fulfill Belissar’s trust in her. Still, that was only the bare minimum, she definitely needed to take a more active role in her bees’ affairs from now on.

    She had wanted to ask Belissar about how he developed his hive of hives, but he also needed to get the stingless queen situated, so it would have to wait for tomorrow. And that meant at least one day that her bees and his could collide.

    Still, it wasn’t all bad. Perhaps one of Belissar’s bees could prove an inspiration to her own, and the impetus for her to take a more active role among them. So long as she could prevent the monster bees and stingless bees from colliding that was...or perhaps as long as she could manage the damage if a clash proved unavoidable.

    She arrived at the beehouse and opened it up. Knowing how large some of Belissar’s bees could get, she built it like one of his Bee Apartments.

    “What do you think?”

    The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s Third Daughter and the Fourth of the Seventh wasted no time zipping inside and hovering around every inch of the apartment, while the workers checked every nook and cranny and the soldiers set up a perimeter outside. Tarwantrad’s new queen then zipped back to her and began looping around.

    “Amazing! Incredible! Is like King’s hives! Flower One is best flower one!”

    Tarwantrad smiled at that, setting aside her concerns for the moment.

    “I’m glad you like it. Please, let me know if there’s anything your king normally does that I’ve overlooked.”

    As Tarwantrad watched the queens and workers buzz around and begin settling into the hive, she resolved to ensure everything would work out between her bees and, at the bare minimum, to keep Belissar’s bees as happy as they would be back in his Tower. For more than one reason, as she also watched the large soldier bees begin a vigilant watch on the walls and roof of their new home...