The hive is attractive to the protagonist.
There are honey, royal jelly, beeswax and other resources in the hive, as well as bees.
Honey is a natural sweetener. Bees take nectar or secretions with a water content of about 75% from the flowers of plants and store them in their second stomach. Under the action of various complex transformations in the body, after about 15 days After repeated brewing, when various vitamins, minerals and amino acids are enriched to a certain value, the polysaccharides in the nectar are converted into simple sugars glucose and fructose, and the honey is ready. Bees store honey with a moisture content of less than 23% in their nest holes and seal them with beeswax.
Honey is a nutrient-rich natural nourishing food and one of the most commonly used tonics. It contains a variety of inorganic salts and vitamins, iron, calcium, copper, manganese, potassium, phosphorus and other organic acids and trace elements beneficial to human health, as well as fructose, glucose, amylase, oxidase, reductase and other nutrients. It has the effects of nourishing, moisturizing, detoxifying, whitening and nourishing the skin, moistening the intestines and laxative.
Human beings have used honey for a very long time. Before the emergence of sucrose, honey was almost the only important source of sweetness. According to the Bible, God asked Moses to lead the Israelites who were slaves in Egypt out of Egypt to the land of milk and honey. This land of milk and honey is the good land of Canaan, on the east bank of the Mediterranean Sea and west of the Jordan River. It can be seen that in mythology, honey is regarded as one of the most beautiful foods.
Honey was also an important food in the Middle East in ancient times. It is said that John the Baptist lived on wild honey.
"Shen Nong's Materia Medica" lists "stone honey, beeswax, and beeswax" as top-grade, pointing out that they have the effect of "removing all kinds of diseases and harmonizing all kinds of medicines" and "taking it for a long time will not hurt people."
Guo Pu praised it in "Ode to Bees": "It is scattered like nectar, condensed like cut fat, fresh and moist, and the marrow is smooth and fragrant. Hundreds of medicines need to be harmonious, and Bian Que has mastered it."
For the protagonist, honey, like aphid honeydew and flower nectar, is a very important luxury resource for controlling ants.
Honeydew is very important to ants and is a rare embellishment in their ordinary lives. The protagonist has no doubt that if the supply of honeydew is interrupted, it will cause great resistance from the seemingly loyal male ants under his command. On the contrary, if he has enough honey resources on hand, he can also strengthen his control over his subordinates and even bribe male ants in other nests.
Compared with the time-consuming and labor-intensive collection of honeydew and nectar, bees are much more efficient in collecting and producing honey. There is generally a shortage of honeydew in the protagonist's territory. If a long-term and stable supply of honey can be obtained, it will be great news.
In addition, honey also has healing properties. Applying honey to traumatic wounds can reduce the leakage of body fluids, relieve pain, promote wound healing, inhibit bacterial growth, and prevent infection when treating wounds. In a world lacking modern medicine, perhaps honey can save lives at critical moments.
Compared to honey, royal jelly is more precious.
The composition of royal jelly is quite complex. Generally speaking, it contains 64.5-69.5% water, 11-14.5% crude protein, 13-15% carbohydrates, 6.0% lipids, 0.4-2% minerals, and 2.84-3.0% unidentified substances. . Royal jelly has the functions of assisting in lowering blood sugar, antioxidant, lowering blood lipids, controlling vasodilation, lowering blood pressure, protecting the liver, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging.
However, compared to its nutritional and health care value, the protagonist values more another point, which is an idea that suddenly pops up by the protagonist.
In fact, royal jelly is a milky substance secreted by young bees after eating pollen. This milky substance is like the breast of mammals and has great nutritional value and immune function.
Among bees, worker bees and queen bees are the same in the egg stage. The young bees that only eat royal jelly for three days after hatching and then switch to honey and pollen grow into bees. The young bees that continue to eat royal jelly after hatching grow into queen bees. The life span of worker bees is limited. In one to six months, the queen bee can generally live five to seven years because she keeps consuming royal jelly.
From the perspective of the protagonist, the decisive factor that determines whether a newborn female ant in an ant colony will eventually grow into a worker ant, a soldier ant, a large worker ant or a queen - the high-end food of ants seems to be another kind of "royal jelly".
The protagonist has been worried about the average intelligence level of ants. Without sufficient group IQ, it is difficult to support the establishment of a new society.
At present, the intelligence level of male ants is acceptable and can reach the level of human teenagers in their teens.
The intelligence of queen ants and male ants is roughly the same, but queens cannot receive formal education (except for secret inheritance), and most queens have not fully developed their intelligence.
The big worker ant class is an important step for the protagonist to change the world of ants. He proved that as long as ordinary worker ants are given sufficient high-end food, their intellectual development can also progress rapidly. However, high-end food is also an important resource in the ant nest, and it is extremely easy to touch the sensitive nerves of the male ant class. The protagonist is currently unable to provide enough high-end food to the large worker ant class without restrictions.
But since the effects of royal jelly and high-end food are so similar, can royal jelly have the same effect as high-end food when fed to ants? If a positive conclusion is obtained after the experiment, the protagonist will have one more card in his hand.
After all, the ancestors of ants and bees are the same, and the protagonist feels confident about the idea of using royal jelly as a substitute for high-end food that suddenly pops up in his mind.
And beeswax.
Beeswax, also known as yellow wax and beeswax. Beeswax is a fatty substance secreted by four pairs of wax glands in the abdomens of suitable-age worker bees in the bee colony. In a bee colony, worker bees use the wax they secrete to build the comb, ovary cover and feed room cover. The spleen is a place where bees store food, cultivate bees, and inhabit clumps. Therefore, beeswax is not only a product of the bee colony, but also a necessary material for its survival and reproduction.
Beeswax has a wide range of uses in industrial and agricultural production in the human world. In the cosmetics manufacturing industry, beeswax is contained in many beauty products, such as body wash, lipstick, rouge, etc.; in the candle processing industry, various types of candles can be made with beeswax as the main raw material; in the pharmaceutical industry, beeswax can be used to make Dental casting wax, base wax, adhesive wax, pill shells; in the food industry, it can be used as food coatings, packaging and coatings; in agriculture and animal husbandry, it can be used to make fruit tree grafting wax and pest adhesive; In beekeeping, nest foundations and wax bowls can be made.
For the protagonist, with beeswax, not only can candles and other light sources be made, but if the ant world develops metal processing technology in the future, there will also be materials to realize the lost wax casting process. It’s a material that’s crucial to the ant world’s burgeoning industry.
In the beehive, there is another resource that also makes the protagonist's heart beat - the bees themselves.
