Chapter 885: Hive and Honey: Gifts and Deals

“Hui Six sent over two boxes of Italian bees—pretty generous if you ask me. Take a look.”

Yang Jin forwarded the video to Xia Qing so she could check out the bees. Officially, this batch of supplies was Hui Six’s compensation to the Azure Dragon Squad, but to keep things under wraps, the bees would first be housed in Territory One. Only after the hives split would Xia Qing take ownership, so for now all she could do was watch by video.

On screen, a person in a protective suit opened a beehive. Inside were two rectangular frames, each side lined with neat hexagonal honeycombs hanging from the top of the hive. Xia Qing had recently squeezed in some time to study beekeeping—she knew those boards were called hive frames.

After the person in the video took out each frame to show them off, Xia Qing asked, “Only two frames in each hive? Judging by that, it looks like about 3,000 bees. Is that considered a medium-strength colony?”

Hearing Xia Qing rattle off such expert questions, Yang Jin felt a surge of relief—good thing he’d done his homework. “After their evolution, bees have become more aggressive and energetic. This would have been a weak colony before the Cataclysm, but these days, it counts as medium. Most of Hui Six’s hives are about this size. No one dares raise strong colonies now, since once a queen bee undergoes Devastation Evolution and commands more than 5,000 bees, the whole colony can attack humans at her urging. See right there? That’s the queen. People say queens nowadays are twice the size of pre-Cataclysm ones.”

Xia Qing leaned in, studying the video closely.

If you just looked at the frames and honeycombs you couldn’t really tell how big the queen was, because bees themselves had grown—so naturally, the combs got bigger too. But comparing the queen to the person’s hand holding the frame, it was wild: the queen crawling slowly across the frame was actually longer than a human middle finger.

That head was even bigger than the worker bees from Chestnut Grove on Hill Forty-Nine.

Xia Qing’s eyes sparkled a little. “Bee bodies getting bigger should mean they’re producing more honey. That’s great news.”

Yang Jin grinned. “Yeah, honey production is up, but so are the costs, so edible honey is still pretty expensive.”

With that, he dug four jars of honey out of his backpack: two darker ones and two lighter.

He popped open the lighter one first. “This is honeysuckle honey—sells for 3,000 credits per jar at Huai Six Base. The real deal, almost impossible to find on the open market.”

A subtle, refreshing scent rose from the pale yellow honey. Xia Qing took a delicate sniff. “This smell is really invigorating.”

While Xia Qing picked up on the honeysuckle notes, Yang Jin caught the faint medicinal fragrance on her—something unique, and he was sure he’d never smelled it before. “The honeysuckle aroma is fresh and heady. It really does sharpen you up. Hui Six even adds honeysuckle extract to two of their air purifiers to boost air quality. Out of the six jars they sent us, two are honeysuckle honey and four are rapeseed honey—all from Green Lantern bees. Mind if I keep two jars of rapeseed honey?”

Under the plan she’d made with Yang Jin, he’d helped her get six jars from Hui Six—four for Xia Qing, two for himself.

Xia Qing then opened up the rapeseed honey and gave it a sniff. She’d grown rapeseed before, so she was way more familiar with this scent.

Both honeys had their perks, but honeysuckle honey had an extra edge: detoxifying effects. That made it pricier than rapeseed, given equal quality.

Without Yang Jin, Xia Qing never could’ve gotten her hands on this batch. She wasn’t stingy, though, so she went right ahead and handed Yang Jin one jar of honeysuckle and one of rapeseed honey.

Yang Jin had already guessed she’d make that call, happily accepting. Then he chatted about Yan Long. “Yan Long’s Special Forces were sent to Gui San Base.”

Xia Qing asked, “Is their mission similar to Red Eleven’s squad that went to Third Brother’s territory to back up Zheng Chen?”

Yang Jin shook his head. “Zheng Chen’s team is there to protect Zhang San and the lab. They won’t be fighting outside. Yan Long’s squad is on a combat mission—they’re in charge of eliminating Devastation Evolution sea beasts heading for Gui Five. Yan Long chose this mission herself.”

Gui Five Base had similar terrain to Gui San, which was already swallowed up by the sea. That environment suited Yan Long perfectly. If she made it back safely, she was sure to come back even stronger.

Noticing the flicker of worry cross Xia Qing’s face, Yang Jin didn’t try to comfort her. Instead, he changed the subject. “Luo’s flying in tomorrow with the helicopter. He’ll be staying in the territory for a few days and teaching you aerial sniping techniques.”

The Azure Dragon Squad had gotten two helicopters: one at squad HQ in the Safe Zone, the other at Territory One. To give this second chopper a legitimate role, Yang Jin and Xia Qing agreed to have Hu Zifeng’s Squad run regular patrols in the Northern Evolved Forest.

Since Xia Qing was Hu Zifeng’s ‘girlfriend,’ she could easily hitch a ride when free, heading to the Northern Evolved Forest to practice flying, parachuting, and even learning air-to-ground sniping.

The news that Luo Pei was coming made Xia Qing light up. Yang Jin noticed and felt a stab of jealousy, clearing his throat before he asked, “If you start beekeeping, what kind of plants are you planning to grow?”

Xia Qing caught on right away. “Did Captain Yang score some bee-friendly flowers from Hui Six?”

Yang Jin’s smile turned crafty. “Yup. I bought honeysuckle, wild ba zi saplings, and Bidens pilosa seeds—all Green Lantern. Want to buy some off me?”

Great minds, apparently, do think alike.

Back when Kuang Qingwei and Qi Fu first mentioned beekeeping last year, Xia Qing and her allies had been discussing in the Lords’ channel what to plant for nectar outside rapeseed’s blooming season. These three plants Yang Jin mentioned were top picks in the group.

During the Cataclysm, wild plants were all mixed—red, yellow, green. Honey from free-range bees was almost impossible to keep consistent, so all edible honey at the bases came from bees pollinating greenhouse-grown flowers.

And for greenhouse cultivation, tall trees were out. You needed flowering shrubs, low bushes, or vines with controllable height—and most importantly, they had to be Green Lantern plants.

To make certified Green Lantern honey, only Green Lantern plants could be used, and the bees gathering nectar also had to be Green Lantern. If any yellow or red bees or plants got mixed in, the honey quality would drop. That’s another reason why honey was so expensive these days.

Honeysuckle vines bloomed from May to October; wild ba zi, a semi-shrub, could grow over a meter tall and flowered from September to January. Bidens pilosa, an herbaceous plant, had its own flowering season from August to September. Add those to the rapeseed planted in the territory, which bloomed from February through April, and you’d have flowers available for bees year-round.

Xin Yu’s flower house already had Green Lantern honeysuckle. When the Alliance squads went out for supplies, they’d managed to collect Green Lantern wild ba zi and Bidens pilosa too. So Xia Qing now had all three.

Plus, in the Breeding Greenhouse, right after raising rice seedlings, Xia Qing had sown huge swaths of Bidens pilosa seeds and planted over forty wild ba zi saplings.

Still, the more Green Lantern plants the better. Steeling herself, Xia Qing looked across at Crippled Wolf’s older brother and got down to business. “I really do need those three types, Captain Yang. What price are you asking?”