When I could, I went to the gathering area. I was near the top of the hive. I was then approached by a gatherer. He asked me "Are you the new recruit I am to be expecting?" I nodded and he sighed. "Luckily for you, we are just about to go out. Six squads of six go out at a time and we go in shifts. This is an efficient and necessary part of Wovili infrastructure. When you come back, you will learn how to make the honey, wax and royal jelly." I was then hurried into a group and we were sent off. We were all taught on the way there. Phesurs were very similar to honey bees. For honey bees to produce honey, they consume pollen and nectar from a variety of flowers they found in the wild. Pollen, a powdery dust-like substance, is produced by various flowering plants. Pollen is one of the purest and richest natural foods, containing all of the nutritional requirements of a honey bee: sugar, carbohydrates, protein, enzymes, vitamins and minerals. Nectar is a sweet fluid found in flowers. Honey bees collect nectar and convert it to honey. We could do the same thing. I wondered how it would work.
There was even more to learn. The majority of honey bee larvae eat honey, but larvae that are chosen to become future queens will be fed with royal jelly. Royal jelly is a pure white secretion. Since the chosen honey bee queens eat only royal jelly, they grow quickly and become twice the size of an ordinary honey bee. Due to the rich nutritional value of royal jelly, queens can survive five years and lay up to 2,000 eggs each day. Honey bees collect pollen and nectar from a variety of flowering plants. Only workers forage for food, consuming as much nectar from each flower as they can. After foraging, worker honey bees return to the hive and pass the collected nectar to another worker. This worker holds the nectar on her tongue until the liquid evaporates, creating honey. The honey is then stored in a cell within the hive. What that meant in practice is that when the Phesurs gathered the pollen in jars and sucked in the nectar with our tongues. They store it in what's called their honey stomach, which is different from their food stomach. When they have a full load, they fly back to the hive. At the hive, we kiss and regurgitate it into another gatherers mouth. They chew it for half an hour and let the liquid evaporate on their tongues. Making out with everyone would be awkward.
To make wax, the glands of worker bees convert the sugar contents of honey into wax, which oozes through the bee's small pores to produce tiny flakes of wax on their abdomens. Workers chew these pieces of wax until they become soft and moldable, and then add the chewed wax to the honeycomb construction. The hexagonal cells of the honeycomb are used to house larvae and other brood, as well as to store honey, nectar and pollen. It was how hives got through the winter months when there was noting to get from the trees or flowers. That gave me an idea. Since there were the Dom and Sub dynamic in the species, it would not be a stretch to go make my own harem and let us survive off of honey. It would obviously take time and planning. I would have to make them fall head over heels for me by decisively beating them in Dominance Fights multiple times. I also would have to escape the notice of the guards. They most likely would not take too kindly to defectors. Either way, it was a good thing to have plans since I did want to explore the world. I just had to bide my time
