Honey bees are the collective name for insects in the superfamily Apidae of the order Hymenoptera, suborder Lepidospermata, and are an important group of the order Hymenoptera.
It is an important resource in itself. It's not that bees can be regarded as domesticated meat livestock, but the protagonist has always believed that bees are more suitable aerial mounts than flies.
Domesticating (or semi-taming) flies was an accident and was not part of the protagonist's original plan.
When the protagonist was raising mealworms in "Dongyang City", he accidentally discovered that fly eggs were mixed with mealworm eggs, and the pupae had hatched.
Through a series of means, the protagonist was lucky enough to tame Xiao Qing I, but this domestication was not complete.
Until now, the protagonist often feels powerless when controlling the mount Xiaoqing II. Especially when encountering emergencies or dangers, mounts often abandon their owners and put them in danger.
This degree of domestication is obviously not enough, although the direct reason may be that the domestication time is too short and the domestication process is not completely completed. However, the protagonist believes that the deeper reason is that flies are solitary creatures, which is very detrimental to domestication work.
Taking human society as an example, dogs are also pets familiar to humans. The degree of domestication of dogs is much higher than that of cats. Cats are still semi-domesticated until modern society.
One of the important reasons is that wolves, the ancestors of dogs, are social animals, while the ancestors of cats are used to living alone.
Among social animals, individual obedience, as a social trait, is itself the result of evolution, because, according to the evolutionary principle of "natural selection, survival of the fittest", those animal groups that do not have such individual obedience , there will be more survival crises, so this lack of obedience gene will have less chance to be inherited.
This is essentially the same as the "dedication" of worker ants in an ant colony and worker bees in a bee colony, and is the result of the evolution of the entire species group.
In this sense, this condition of domesticated animals also shows that they have been "self-domesticated" at least before they were domesticated by humans. Their group survival and hierarchical relationships within the group are part of "natural selection".
Perhaps it can be said that: those who are domesticated are always those who are willing to be domesticated. Because they had domesticated themselves before being domesticated by humans.
Other more highly domesticated animals, such as horses, cattle, camels, reindeer and pigs, are also animals that live in groups.
Therefore, the fly species has inherent flaws in domestication. No matter what, the protagonist cannot make them feel a sense of belonging to the ant colony. The reason why they are happy to stay in the ant nest is mostly for food and honeydew. Once they are unable to satisfy themselves with food and honeydew, they may run away.
This situation has already happened in "Dongyang City". There are always some fly mounts that are "unwilling to be lonely" and will try to leave the fly stable.
For these stinging heads that are difficult to stop, the guarding worker ants can only kill them for meat. The relatively docile flies were reserved for breeding and servitude. Maybe after hundreds of generations of this, suitable flies will be successfully bred.
But at least for now, flies are not particularly qualified mounts.
Bees are different. Bees, like ants, are eusocial insects. Bees in a hive have a strong sense of belonging and are even willing to sacrifice their lives for the colony. This group behavior and sense of belonging allow them to meet the conditions of "self-domestication" when they are domesticated.
Although the single flight ability of bees is weaker than that of flies, their three advantages are enough to make up for this shortcoming.
One is the habit of group living mentioned before. As long as the queen can be controlled, the bees will consciously live in the nests and groups they recognize without the need for ants to guard her.
Second, bees can feed themselves and provide additional honey, royal jelly and beeswax, which has important economic value. Unlike flies, which require additional food and honeydew from ants.
Finally, bees have a certain ability to defend themselves. Although this self-defense ability is one-time, when bees are attacked, they will use the stinger on their tail to fight back. Once the stinger is used, it will tear out the bee's digestive system, causing the bee to die.
But this is much better than flies that have no ability to defend themselves and can only escape. At least because of this potential threat, some predators are reluctant to choose bees to attack, which invisibly provides a layer of security for the flying knights.
Now, such a swarm of bees that the protagonist is optimistic about appears near "Dongyang City", which undoubtedly makes him very happy.
Although the timing is not right at the moment, the protagonist cannot devote too many manpower and resources to tame the hive. But he believed that when he freed up his hands, this hive would be his.
Therefore, the protagonist forbids Rambo Fei from taking any hostile actions against the hive, and even requires the ants in "East Yang City" not to climb the big poplar tree to avoid conflict with the bee colony. Even though Rambo Fei looked very reluctant.
The protagonist himself rode Xiaoqing II and tried to get a closer look at the hive from the air.
The location of the beehive is relatively secretive. If Lamborghini hadn't reminded him and the protagonist followed the path of the bees returning to the hive, he might not have discovered it.
The honeycomb is built in a tree hole in the middle of a poplar tree. The entrance to the tree hole is not big, only about the size of a human fist. Such a small entrance is covered by the dense dark green leaves of poplar trees, which can only be discovered when you get very close.
The entrance was covered with beeswax, leaving only a narrow entrance and exit, pitch black, and it was unknown how far into the hive it was.
There are always some bees on guard at the hive mouth, some flying in the air and circling the nest, and some lying on the tree trunks. Bees that have gone out to forage and have returned from foraging pass by each other in the narrow entrance and exit, showing a sense of vitality.
The protagonist wants to get closer, but Xiaoqing II has shown obvious resistance. It has seen bees and knows that these creatures are not easy to deal with.
As a result, Xiaoqing II began to refuse to obey the protagonist's instructions and tried to stay away from the hive. Even though the protagonist continues to directly control the mount's balance rod through the reins and forcibly change its flight trajectory, when the protagonist relaxes a little, Xiao Qing II immediately takes over his body and tries to escape.
This has always been a headache for the protagonist, unable to completely control the mount.
The weird flying posture of the protagonist and his mount finally alerted the patrolling bee guards, and a bee began to approach the protagonist.
So the protagonist had no choice but to give up the investigation and control Xiao Qing II to return to "Dongyang City". At this time, Xiao Qing II finally stopped acting like a monster and obeyed the command honestly.
