Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

In just a day, the Beehounds have found a skink egg clutch nearby. In two more days, they found half a dozen of them in our territory or nearby.

Half of them contained evolved skink eggs, although no more evolved skinks were found. Perhaps it was the only one. Either way, the bees working in the area were told to be on high alert and the patrols there were doubled in size.

But among other good news, the rest of the egg expeditions returned without much problems. A few Beemarine squads were attacked on their way to Hive Supremo (not by eggs' parents, but by other predators wanting to eat them), but they all fought valiantly and protected both eggs and themselves.

Now, a hatchery was built at the foot of Hive Supremo. To emulate the warmth that many of these eggs were getting from compost piles and other such places, the hatchery was standing right next to Hive Supremo's forges and clay kilns.

Although several eggs were damaged during their journey to Hive Supremo, most have survived it pretty well. These tough reptile eggs were nothing like fragile bee pupae.

And I'd love to just sit and wait for these eggs to hatch, but the peaceful times of the Empire seemed to be over.

At one of the regular Empire Council gatherings, after I asked if anyone else wanted to say something, the Chief Oracle Undecided stood from her observation spot.

"Father, my older sisters… I and other Oracles think that our latest predictions are probable enough for you to hear. And I became almost sure of it after I heard Adviser Workharder's food estimates for the Empire."

"Me? What's wrong with my estimates?" Workharder asked defensively. She shook her fist in the air. "I calculated everything. Everything! Because I can even count and calculate!"

I frowned at her, then smiled encouragingly at the Oracle.

"Please, explain what you mean, Undecided. Preferably before Workharder explodes from offense."

Undecided shrunk on herself, but nodded.

"As you said, we went through the giants' meat long ago, but have been expanding aphid pastures. And of course, we have been gathering a lot of nectar, and even some tree leaves that don't taste too bad. But your estimate for the future is that you can make even more pastures and gather even more flower nectar from all the territories we conquered and made safe, even from dragons."

Workharder glowered.

"Yes, and?"

"It won't work," Undecided said authoritatively, then shook her head. "I mean, it *might* work, but it *probably* won't. There won't be enough trees for us to harvest, because other creatures will get to them first."

Bloodhero sucked in a sharp breath.

"How? What creatures? Where did they come from? We have exterminated all the competition! Now we just have to deal with the damned flies… Where do they even come from?" She shook her head, glowering.

"You mean some larger herbivore beasts?" I asked, wondering if we were about to be trampled by a herd of cows.

Undecided shrugged.

"No matter what lives there except us, they will compete for our food so fiercely that your current predictions will fail, Adviser Workharder. But you can make new predictions."

"Or eat whoever tries to get *our* food! One way or another, all this food *will* get to our sisters!" Workharder said fiercely.

"Thank you for the warning, Undecided," I said, thinking about my options.

We needed some food in the short term, first of all, then—

"So if whoever we leave alive will compete with us for food, we must cleanse our territory fully," Ambrosia said.

Bloodhero opened her mouth.

"But this is just impossible!" I said before Bloodhero could agree with Amby's "they can't hurt us if they are dead" policy. "There are beasts that live on tops of the pillar mountains, like dragons and bug-monkeys. Not to mention all the insects out there, and all the insects underground, and so on and so forth."

Ambrosia pursed her lips.

"We might start on it, at least. The meat we gather from this hunt will fill our food stores, too."

I opened my mouth to retort by habit, then paused and nodded.

"Well, that's not the worst idea. While we still have honey to preserve meat, why not preserve as much as we can? Bloodhero can send some of our soldiers to assist the Hunters in that."

I relaxed, thinking that the problem was successfully solved, when another thing hit me.

"Wait, but what will happen with the unevolved hives in our territory? The bees there can't eat meat!" I looked at Undecided, searching for answers.

She shrugged.

"I don't know. Perhaps something would happen later, in the dreams I haven't seen yet?"

"Damn," I muttered. "But logically speaking, if we get food shortages, these bees get food shortages even sooner. Then we will be out of Drones for sub-hives in a couple of months. We already don't have too many of them!"

With the mite infestation taking down so many hives in the area, we only had a dozen unevolved hives to give Drones to all the Empire and each other. Thankfully, there was still enough for procreation (although this gave my little princesses fewer choices for their harems than they'd like).

For now.

"We can share our honey storage with these hives…" Workharder said, picking a few wax tablets with her calculations. "It won't last forever, but there aren't any bees in our empire by now who can't eat meat. And we can cure it with air instead of honey."

"This will be just a short-term solution. No… We must protect the flowers of our dumber kin! And grow our own as necessary. Researchina, write it down—we are going to build proper agriculture."

"I know what agriculture is. Please, explain instead something actually *new*, Father. But what will we plant? Should we gather seeds from trees in the forest?"

"I have a better idea. The best solution is the one that has already worked before!"