Chapter 119: Chapter 114 Cultivating Bees_i

Translator: 549690339 |

Qin Niu watched as the bee finished eating and waited patiently.

Lacking experience, he cherished the life of every pet.

Even though he knew that after the first batch of worker bees emerged from their pupae, there would be ten new bees becoming his pets every day.

He still cherished each pet immensely.

After the bee finished eating, there was no reaction at first, but then it started

to falter.

Its body began to swell and faint green veins appeared, looking somewhat like cracks, yet somewhat like green Banyan Tree Blood merging into its blood, spreading along its veins.

His experience with breeding the hornet last time added a little bit to his knowledge.

But it was incomparable to this time.

Because breeding that hornet was purely for making Silver Money, and he cultivated it to be as weak as possible.

Very little potion was used.

That hornet, like the Swift Ant, was an incomplete evolution, a semi-finished product.

But this time he was breeding bee species for himself and he definitely pursued perfection.

He wanted it to evolve to its strongest potential.

The dosage of Banyan Blood Potion he fed was calculated based on the safety amount for breeding termites and from his experience with the last hornet.

Mastering this dosage was very difficult.

Too little and it wouldn’t fully evolve, resulting in a semi-finished product.

Which could also be seen as a defective product.

Too much and it would explode and die.

Bang!

This poor worker bee couldn’t survive the process of becoming stronger and exploded on the spot.

Qin Niu watched with a heavy heart.

But the experiment had to continue.

The path of Insect Master growth was full of hardships.

Compared to other Insect Masters, he had a great advantage.

Other Insect Masters might have captured just an individual insect, rather than an Ant Queen or a Queen Bee. To cultivate them would be even more arduous, requiring extreme caution at every step.

Granted, they could experiment with other insects of the same species, but many special insects were irreplicable and unique.

For instance, his Ant Queen and Fourth were just such beings.

Furthermore, every material that could evolve and strengthen an insect was extremely precious and rare.

Which Insect Master would be willing to feed them to ordinary insects?

Qin Niu’s termites and bees could be mass-produced, and Banyan Tree Blood and ‘Thousand Eyes Tree’ Blood were inexhaustible, so there was no need to worry about raw materials.

It was with these advantages that he was able to breed so many special termites in a very short period of time.

Now, it would be the same with breeding bees.

He believed he could quickly breed a large batch of special bees.

“You, come here!”

This time, Qin Niu chose to reduce the amount of Banyan Tree Blood and mixed it with the honey before feeding it to the worker bee.

Then came another long wait.

In anxious anticipation, this worker bee miraculously made it through.

Qin Niu couldn’t hide his smile of success.

With only two bees used for the experiment, he had already found a preliminary safe dosage, which showed that the valuable experience he gained from breeding termites and the various beekeeping knowledge he learned were all highly effective.

“Not bad, not bad, all eight of you will be dealt with together.”

Qin Niu looked up at the sky, which had started to darken.

However, with his now considerable strength, he was not very afraid.

Xiao Nui, having eaten until its belly was round, lay comfortably under the pine tree, squinting its eyes as it watched him.

With Xiao Nui’s company, Qin Niu felt less lonely in the deep mountains.

For now, he had no intention of practicing cultivation with Xiao Qing.

After all, they hadn’t been in contact for long.

Even though she was just a child and not harboring bad intentions, one couldn’t see through a person’s character in just a day or two.

The journey reveals the strength of the horses, time reveals the heart of the people.

He brought Xiao Qing back with him purely because she was an orphan. Plus, with her grandfather’s dying request, he provided her with a place to stay.

Following Qin Niu was much better than being captured and sold to a wealthy family as a maid or worse, sold into a brothel.

Qin Niu didn’t see himself as a good person, with a ruthless heart, but he was certainly not a bad person either.

With Xiao Qing following him, as long as she was loyal to him, she would definitely encounter a great opportunity.

He fed all eight worker bees the honey mixed with Banyan Tree Blood and waited patiently.

When feeding them, he did not use a one-size-fits-all approach.

He made some flexible adjustments based on the physical strength of each worker bee.

Time passed by minutely and secondly.

Among the eight worker bees, one ultimately didn’t make it and burst.

Seven survived.

That meant out of the ten worker bees, eight were successfully cultivated in the initial phase.

This was a pretty good result.

He carefully put the eight worker bees back in the bee hive. Bees needed the queen bee’s pheromones to calm them, or they would easily lose control.

The consequence of a bee colony losing its queen was very terrible.

Without a queen, the bee colony would become listless.

The worker bees would no longer diligently go out to collect pollen and make honey, but instead would eat the honey already in the hive every day.

The drones had it the worst; they were the first to be expelled from the colony, eventually left to fend for themselves.

Some of the worker bees would also lay eggs on their own.

Since worker bees are immature females, even though they could lay eggs, all the offspring would be drones.

It’s not hard to imagine that the whole bee colony would ultimately perish. After putting the eight worker bees in place, Qin Niu couldn’t stay to guard them here. As for the queen bee, although its status in the colony was high, it was seen by other worker bees merely as a breeding machine.

The queen bee could command the other bees to work, but it couldn’t order them to do things unrelated to their duties.

This was very similar to an ant colony.

The things the queen bee could command the worker bees to do were, for instance, if the queen bee was hungry, it would release hunger pheromones, and the worker bees would quickly rush over to feed it.

Or, when winter was approaching, the queen bee would send out a signal to store honey, and the worker bees would become even more diligent, collecting pollen and making honey day and night.

if an enemy invaded, there was no need for the queen bee’s reminder. The guard bees would immediately signal, and a large number of worker bees would mobilize to repel the enemy and protect the hive and queen bee.

After attending to this, Qin Niu took the termites back to the ant nest, and then hurriedly carried the collected ancient banyan tree blood down the mountain.

Xiao Nui trotted along behind him, moving at a steady pace.

It seemed not at all afraid of the tigers and wolves in the mountains.

At that moment, it had already become very dark, and night had fallen.

Qin Niu, relying on the dim twilight, moved forward with steps both long and short.

in the darkness, he saw a light ahead, as if someone was carrying an oil lamp and moving forward.

Who could be entering the mountains so late at night?

Qin Niu had indeed heard many stories about ghosts devouring people, lhey say there are beautiful female ghosts, who, at night, pretend to be women in distress seeking help, to bewitch the minds of men.

If a man’s willpower was not strong enough, he would be drained of his life essence by the female ghost while he was being enticed.

Qin Niu subconsciously drew his treasured sword and held it in his hand.

If there really was a female ghost, one slash would finish it off.

This treasured sword had already developed blade qi; it had abilities beyond just piercing armor, and presumably, it should be quite effective against ghosts as well.

The light grew closer.

“Moo~!”

Xiao Nui raised its head and made a sound.

It even sounded a bit affectionate.

Qin Niu focused his eyes and saw that a frail figure was carrying an oil lamp, making her way along the mountain path.

“Master!”

When she heard Xiao Nui’s call, she immediately shouted into the mountain ahead.

“Is that you, Xiao Qing?”

Qin Niu’s heart trembled slightly. This girl, hadn’t he told her to stay at home? The sky was already dark, and she had run into the mountain too dangerous.

“Master! It’s me!”

Xiao Qing sprinted forward and soon reached Qin Niu; seeing the scratches on her body, he felt a wave of heartache.

“1 told you to stay at home and wait for me. Why did you come up the mountain in the dark?”

Qin Niu looked at the scratches from thorns on her body, feeling both pained and touched, and couldn’t help but scold her.

“Seeing that you hadn’t returned so late, I started to get scared, so I could not help but bring the oil lamp from home to look for you. 1 carried the short knife you gave me, so I’m not afraid of ordinary beasts.

She brandished the short knife in her hand.

“You child!”

Qin Niu touched her head, feeling within his heart the warmth of being cared for and cherished something he had felt only when Old Man Liu was still alive.

“Let’s go, let’s go home!”

Qin Niu had her carry the oil lamp and lead the way in front..