My bees were looking at the unlit candle with pure disappointment.
"Hey! 'Tiny'? Skill matters more than size! And—and anyway, this is a perfectly adequate size for candles!"
"But this doesn't look like a weapon at all…"
"You didn't see half of it! Behold!"
I stuck the candle wick into my small bonfire, then showed my audience the lit candle.
*Now* they were impressed.
"We will bring the hornets fire. Right onto their own body hair and into their evil croissant paper hives. Or even a wax hive, if that's what they built it from."
Beeswax was flammable, too—it just had an ignition temperature of 400 degrees Celsius. It was the real fuel for any candles, and the reason the candle wick didn't burn through in seconds.
Flame from the wick melted the wax, which was pulled into the wick by… uh… whatever forces. Then it burned there like fuel. And beeswax was *the best* fuel, so I could be proud on behalf of bees all over the world.
Yeah, you *never* know when you will need all those "useless" facts from the Internet. So no, I wasn't wasting time and pointlessly procrastinating when I read them!
"What's 'paper', Father?"
"What's 'croissant'?"
I waved off these questions with the same hand that held the candle.
A mistake.
"Ah! It stopped burning!" A Craftsman Bee pointed with her finger.
"So it doesn't work that well, does it, Father?"
I huffed and re-lit it.
"It works *perfectly* fine. You will just need to invent some wind protection for the candles. Perhaps a small jug to keep them inside?"
I used three free arms to show an approximate shape, basing it on kerosene lanterns.
The Craftsmen Bees nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes… Like a small beeswax cell…"
"We can make it a hexagon. Hexagon is a good shape."
"A beautiful shape. Sticks together…"
"But Father, can you show us? How will that work?"
I extinguished the candle once more and clapped the nearest Craftsman Bee on the shoulder.
"Well, I'm sure you can figure it out! You and your subordinates. If you can mock your father like that, then you are surely smart enough… It's just a simple task, anyway. And speaking of tasks, you have them!"
My daughters were visibly torn between wanting to ask me questions and wanting to experiment themselves. Before either desire won, I began listing off their research-production queue.
"First, we will need, say… 20 more sets of bone armor. 40 candles ready to be moved around. Plus an equal amount of hammers. Just for a start."
After my Sergeant Craftsmen assured me that they will remember everything and flew away to carry the information to their subordinates, I was left alone with the bonfire
To the side of me, Foragers and Foremen Bees were flying in and out of the hive, barely paying attention to the miracle of technology right under their nose.
Not that I complained, when that meant they were bringing all that food to the hive!
I checked it once again and grinned.
> Food: 69 units
Not only was there a squad of 10 Foremen Bees for *every* 50 Forager Bees, and also Warrior Bees guarding our borders—the Forager Bees themselves were far from the ones I've seen upon my first arrival at the hive.
I've been in this world for two months. By now, even the youngest of the bees born before my appearance have died from old age.
The younger, smarter Foragers cooperated easily with their Foremen Bees, and many carried self-made wax jugs, which they could do with instinctive knowledge of the 'Primitive Containers' technology.
It all filled me with deep pride as an administrator and a father to all these bees.
I extinguished the bonfire and flew off to share this pride with Ambrosia. She was in her cell, practicing lettering on a wax table.
Although at first she frowned at the distraction, that frown soon turned into a beautiful smile.
"Isn't this incredible, Amby? We will probably need more storage cells to hold everything our daughters bring!" I gushed.
"Most likely. We will have to make honey out of it to preserve all the food. Although… Each new generation ages longer and longer, doesn't it?"
I nodded.
"My genes—or 'seed' as you call it—increase their lifespan. It will only get longer. And that's a great thing, too!"
Ambrosia nodded again.
"The fewer and fewer bees will die every day, thanks to your seed and your efforts. This will mean that their amount will grow much faster than usual. We will eventually run out of place in this cave."
"I think this is still a while away, Ambrosia…"
Or was it?
Then we will need to rebuild the hive elsewhere, or perhaps, start building outside of the cave?
Either way was dangerous.
Especially with a hornet colony close to our borders. There weren't any sightings of them in the last two days, but I knew it was a matter of time until our hive was found.
My smile dimmed.
This was the real reason I came to Ambrosia.
I had a great plan to deal with the hornets. My bees were going to burn their nest to the *fucking ground*. Kill them with *fire*.
Geneva convention didn't apply to daughter-eating monstrous bastards.
There was only one caveat… We had no idea where the hornets' nest *was*!
Maybe there was no nest at all. Maybe those were *different* hornets. We had no information!
So…
"Ambrosia… I think I must do something risky again. Will you be mad?"