Tactical Change

It took me a couple of hours to analyze all the information while another part of my brain put together a half-baked theory for what exactly happened in the hive.

There were some clues in the information I got, but all the other options I thought of were slowly discarded for one reason or another.

After biding farewell to Hope and thanking her for the help, I once again went back to the barn.

'Paws?'

The little Panther appeared in front of me and rubbed his nose against my hand happily. I smiled and pet him for a minute before telling him.

'I have a little mission for you.'

__________________________________________

The next morning a meeting was set. The scouting group came back late and after informing us a little more about the situation in the queen bee's base I had confirmed my theory.

No attack came that night.

Blackie with a couple of his most trusted followers was there together with Pinky, and his rats on steroids, from the human side Blake, Frederick, Ines and I were present.

The first we did was confirm the already shared information from the different intel we have gathered. Like Ines, a few rats from Pinky's team also managed to get inside the honeycomb, and we could confirm Ines results.

Thanks to Paws, I already knew this, but knowing that they could get information by themselves was reassuring.

With the information spread to all the parties, it was my turn to speak about my theory.

"First I want to talk about bees…

There are three types of bees, The Queen, Workers, and Drones. There are differences between them … but after some analysis, I believe that not all of them applies to this hive. I think that Drones developed a stinger and we know that size isn't accurate either, as a more evolved bee might be bigger than another from the same type."

They looked at me and didn't understand the reason why I was talking about it, but I just continued talking.

"Yesterday I went and studied them and discovered that despite the presence of the stinger, the attack from two night ago was mainly made by Drones, not workers. And this is the first clue I got."

They also found it odd, so they waited patiently for my explanation.

"They didn't attack in a long time, and when they did, they didn't send their strongest forces, they picked the weakest drones in their group to do that… Why?"

"Drones have only one job in a colony, and that is to mate with the Queen, they are dead weight and usually die after that or before winter to save food and heat. Getting rid of the drones as we get near the winter makes sense, but sending only weak Drones doesn't add up. Unless they still need the current ones."

Everyone nodded their heads as they also thought that if everything I said is right, there was something else going on.

"But… what if we add to the theory that the original Queen is dead?"

The people around me was easy to read, they were surprised, but I have no way to know what the beasts were thinking.

'Then who is controlling the bees?'

"A new Queen, one that hasn't matured yet. Think about it, if the queen was hurt during the previous attack, or she knew that her time was coming to an end, she would do her best to lay eggs and prepare another Queen, attacking again would only have decreased their strength, and their recovery would have been slow without a mature queen… they used the chance they had and failed. Now they have to wait."

"That's a good theory but how you know that the queen really died?"

"Ines and Pinky's Scout described the honeycomb in detail, the size of the place the bees inside of it and the distribution of the cells, when I asked about the inhabitants of the cells they said that they were empty. Inside each cell, there should eggs and larvae, but they are empty. Which means that the queen is not doing her job…"

That was not the only reason that I knew. After I sent Paws into the honeycomb, I confirmed that there was only one bee that could qualify as the queen, but it was a young one.

Blackie looked at me as if he knew that I knew more than what I was telling. I just ignored his gaze and kept my explanation going.

"The reason behind the recent attacks is to keep us away from them, the most recent one was a purge in their own favor, and despite how it ended, it was good for them. That attack could have ended with either our death or the weak drones dying."

They nodded in understanding, with the weaker ones dead they can assure that only the best drones will mate with the queen, making the future offspring even stronger than before.

"Then we have to change or tactics, we can't give them time to lay and hatch the eggs, do you know how much time we have before they… mate again?"

"There is no doubt that they will do it before the winter begins, that way, they can get rid of the drones and save food. The exact date is a mystery, but we can notice when the mating process takes places, it's called the nuptial dance and the scouts should be able to notice when the queen and the drones leave the honeycomb and happen."

I had a few ideas of how we can use this knowledge to our advantage, but this was the right moment to see the way they use this information.

There are few points to consider in in the making of the next plan and the way I see it, we have two good options.

The first would be a preemptive strike.

The plan was simple, we need to strike before the nuptial dance in rapid in and out guerrilla-style tactics. The objective of this plan is to get rid of the drones before the nuptial dance happens, preventing the fertilization of the eggs.

When this happens no worker bees will be born in this generation, and according to the books the worker bees only live around three months, that might have changed with the evolution, but seeing how worried the previous queen was, I think that the current generation doesn't have enough time to breed a new generation before winter.

At least this strategy will buy us more time to attack the honeycomb in winter when they are at their weakest.

During the nuptial flight, the drones will die, but all the hive will be there, so the next window to attack is after it happens.

The drones will be dead, the queen after laying eggs will be weak, and most of the worker bees will be either collecting food or taking care of the eggs.

A full attack was still tricky to pull off.

If something like this were to succeed, there was a need for a good setup, we would need something to take down the honeycomb as fast as possible. No saving energy for Hayley and Blake. Kamila's ability would fit this plan quite well, but without proper training, we could not use her, and I plan to tell this to Blake.

There were other options, but none of them had good chances of working as we wanted.

After explaining a little more about the bees, and a lot of talking, the plan to attack after the nuptial dance started to take form.

The main reason to pick it was that it would give them time to prepare… the second reason is that they haven't thought about attacking before the nuptial dance and I didn't propose it myself either.

_______

The next two days were crazy.

A small group (that included Kamila) went back to Green Shelter to bring fuel and explosives.

The scout's job was by far the most important as they slowly mapped the interior of the honeycomb. From the layout, we had the idea of the location of the queen, but it was heavily guarded, and there were even Astral Bees in the area, so any assassination attempt would most likely fail, even if I send Paws or go there myself.

From the mapping, Giorgio and Frederick were able to find a couple of weak points in the structure that will be the targets after the nuptial flight.

The attack on these points should be enough to for it to collapse burying most of the hive, killing the eggs and a lot of bees making the battle post-collapse easier.

So the next night, when the scouts noticed weird movements from the hive, we started to get ready to execute the plan.