Chapter 4: The Distance to Jörg

It’s been a few days since Volg and the others arrived and started building the residence. Right now, their presence has been a huge plus for the Arnold fief. For delivering their daily necessities, the peddlers have been really active. Thanks to the payment that I received for the land price and nuisance fee, I start to let go of our budgeting problems.

In the raspberry flower garden where the honey bees are gathered, I thought about my younger brother, Jörg. I went to visit him after the day of our match, but I couldn’t. I was told that his wounds were deep and he hadn’t regained consciousness. I left it for a while and decided to go visit him again around the time he should be awake. It’ll come any time now.

I want to talk with Jörg about a lot of things. I wish that I could close the gap with my younger brother even if just a little. It’s for his sake, sure, but it’s also for my sake.

I think I’m going to make him some sweets that suits us brothers and bring it to him.

“Just as Kurt-sama said, the honeycombs are filled up by a white substance.”

“Yeah, I’m happy that it has reached this point. Inside that substance, there’s a new queen bee among the larvae.”

Right now, while cleaning the bee hives just with Tina, we have a new task: to increase the number of bees. The organism that we call bees will hatch from eggs that can only be laid by the queen bee. Furthermore, in a hive, there can only be one queen bee. That’s why there’s a limit to the pace and the number of bees we can increase in one hive. Conversely, if we transfer a queen bee to a different hive, that queen bee can make a new colony and increase the number of bees more efficiently.

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“But it feels kind of strange to intentionally hatch a queen bee.”

“That’s human intelligence.”

The difference between a queen bee and common bee only lies in their food source as a larva. Only by feeding on a white substance called royal jelly will it grow into a large and strong queen bee, capable of laying many eggs.

Usually, by feeding a number of queen bee larvae candidates with royal jelly, there’ll be one among them that safely grows into a queen bee, while the rest of them are killed. They won’t create a new one unless the current queen bee is old and weak.

However, we can hatch an artificial queen bee. By modifying one section of the hive, we can carry royal jelly for the larvae inside. The bees have this habit of feeding royal jelly to larva in a peculiar shaped room called a queen cell (oudai) in the corner of the broods. Therefore, it’s just the case of how to form a queen cell.

Moreover, the nutritious royal jelly that can nurture a queen bee can also become a high grade medicine. I was thinking to sell some once we could harvest them, eventually.

“The larva inside the queen cells that we prepared is growing into a queen bee as we speak. We’ll transfer it to a different hive somewhere with some worker bees and drones. Once it happens, the hatched bees will increase even if we leave them alone.”

With this, we can make another new hive. There are only ten hives now, but I’m aiming for fifty hives next year. The hive boxes can be made thanks to the surplus budget, the materials are also being purchased little by little.

“Kurt-sama, we can increase the number of bees and hives, obviously… but we can’t catch up with the tasks.”

“That’s what’s been on my mind, too.”

Tina is right. Originally, this pioneering village has no extra personnel for the reclamation. On top of that, we’re already lacking manpower from the additional task of taking care of the chickens. Among them, there’s no one who has already seen the task of beekeeping. Tina and I already have our hands full by taking care of ten boxes. I can’t even begin to spell the trouble that fifty boxes would bring.

“How about taking people from other villages?”

“It’s possible. This village is the newest one, so the reclamation takes up the most of our time, but the other villages have new children. If we put up a notice of recruitment, people will probably flock here. At the very least, I want to get as many helping hands as possible this time.”

One of the purposes of land reclamation is to feed the villagers. However, due to the issues of reclamation pace and the number of children, there are also villagers who can’t succeed their lands, those second sons, third sons. I should conduct a scouting for these capable personnel. Once I do that, the other village will be happy from reducing the excess mouths to feed, while my village will be happy to receive the additional manpower that we’re lacking in.

However, I want to avoid that method this time as much as I can. If we successfully cultivate fifty beehives, other villages will soon follow. Once we come to that, the excess members they currently have will become necessary.

“Did you think about other plans?”

“I’m going to Marquis Fernandes’ place to bake pastries as a present for the duchess soon. I’m thinking about recruiting people to immigrate to our settler’s village at that time. The other side is much stabler than ours, they have also stopped their reclamation progress, so they have an extreme surplus of members. I’ve been meaning to increase the population of the Arnold fief itself.”

“That sounds wonderful! This land will become wealthier than we are now!”

“That’s right. Reality is harsh, though. Whether they choose to come here or not is a problem by itself already. Moreover, it’s out of question if we can’t increase their earnings, including for those additional members. If we can’t make them think that coming here will increase their livelihood, no one will come.”

“Arnold is infamous for being poor, so they may not wish to come here.”

Hearing Tina’s worrisome mumble, I can’t help but to smile bitterly.

“For now, yes. It’s kind of hopeless this time around, I think. Once our honey business goes well, though, that kind of image will soon disappear. Anyhow, the honey we have here has already received a stamp of approval from Marquis Fernandes for its taste. Once we start selling it, I’m sure we’ll become a wealthy village in no time.”

The honey will surely bring an enormous fortune for us. Well, we still have the problem of lacking manpower to reach that point, though. Realistically speaking, we can recruit people by saying they have nothing to lose this time. If that’s still no good, we can borrow people from other villages, start selling at a small scale, then start recruiting again for the next cycle.

While thinking about that, we’re proceeding with the tasks to increase the number of bees. For now, in order to cultivate new bees, the stockpiling nectar is used by the bees, so we can’t harvest too much honey. This is our future investment, though. It’s for the sake of harvesting way, way more honey than we have now, next year.

☘

After doing a bit of work, I returned to the kitchen again. I’m here for the sake of making sweets for Jörg. I realized that this was the first time I did something like this for that guy. In that sense, maybe I was strange. For the sake of him who has been the closest to me, let’s make sweets. That is my duty as his older brother.

If I had looked at him properly and loved him, our relationship would certainly be far different than what we have now. I can’t change the past, but I can change the future, so I’m going to make special sweets for that sake.

The sweets that will patch up my bond with Jörg, one that will send him off to his new stage.

Translator’s Notes: Please read at isecai.wordpress.com~

Finally the brother’s arc! …kay maybe it’s too much to say “arc”, I bet it’s already done in the next chapter. Meh.

Please note that I have limited vocabulary in beekeeping. If you’re interested in it, there are many sites to learn from! If I, for one, live in an open area instead of being surrounded by neighbors, I would have learned to do it years ago. xD