Rebirth in 1984, starting from beekeeping in the mountains

Chapter 87 Seven-story bee tower! Queen bee soaking in wine!
With the small hoe in hand, Fang Hongan became more careful in digging.

As the soil was continuously dug up, more and more of the beehive in the nest hole was exposed.

After Fang Hongan widened the hole to the size of a washbasin, he dug about ten centimeters deeper.

In the nest hole, the outline of the entire upper part of the beehive has been fully revealed.

Through the part that has been excavated, three layers of nesting cells can be seen.

There is obviously a fairly large area below these three floors.

"Oh my god! It's so big!"

Seeing this scene, even Wang Tong, who was busy catching bees, couldn't help but exclaim.

"It's a bit big!"

Fang Hongan also sighed.

Who would have thought that there would be such a large nest of hornets on this inconspicuous barren hill?

If we allow them to grow, at this distance, all the beehives in the thatched house will be destroyed by them in no time.

Thinking of this, Fang Hongan couldn't help but secretly feel lucky that he discovered it early.

Under the scorching sun, it was extremely hot and stuffy inside the thick bee-proof clothing.

Fang Hongan felt that his whole body was soaked with sweat, and beads of sweat kept rolling down his forehead.

But thinking about the huge threat posed by this swarm and the huge harvest that was about to be obtained.

The hoe in Fang Hongan's hand not only did not hesitate at all, but became even more powerful.

After continuous digging, they finally reached the bottom of the beehive.

At this time, the horizontal surface of the beehive was completely revealed in front of Fang Hongan.

The top is covered with a layer of nest skin with a furry texture like a carpet.

But if you look from the side, you can clearly see the layers of nest cells.

Just as Fang Hongan had observed before, the three-story nest that was revealed before was only a part of it.

Below the third layer of cells, there are four more layers of cells.

There are seven floors in total.

These seven layers of cells are somewhat similar to the honeycombs of wild bees, with small cells at both ends and a large cell in the middle.
The three largest ones are probably more than half a meter in diameter and weigh at least more than twenty kilograms!

The combined weight of these seven layers of honeycombs exceeds one hundred kilograms.

Even if Fang Hongan and Wang Tong carried it together, it would probably not be very difficult to carry it out completely.

At this moment, after being dug up and exposed to the sun, not only are there many ghost wasps crawling hurriedly on these nests, but if you go in from the side, you can also see large patches of white pupae in many of the regular nests.

"Brother! Are you going to pick up the goods? I'll help you!"

On Wang Tong's side, after some work, he had almost killed all the ghost bees moving around.

Looking back, I saw Fang Hongan had completely dug up the beehive.

With excitement and anticipation, I quickly came over.

"Don't worry!" Fang Hongan pressed his hand on him, "Find the queen bee first!"

Stop Wang Tong.

Fang Hongan also put down the hoe in his hand.

He squatted down, staring at the layers of beehive, carefully looking for the traces of the queen bee.

Digging out a black bee hive is no different from digging out a honey bee hive before.

When digging up beehives in the past, the queen bee was left behind, either to make it easier to collect the bees later.

Or you can continue to leave fire for the bee colony so that they can continue to reproduce and rebuild the hive.

But this is a nest of devil bees.

It is necessary to eradicate the root of the problem.

Therefore, when cleaning the hive, it doesn't matter if some worker bees and drones slip through the net.

But this queen bee must be caught and soaked in wine!

We can't give this swarm any chance to make a comeback.

After squatting on the ground and observing for a while, I saw that the remaining ghost bees on the nest were rushing towards the nest on the fifth floor.

Fang Hongan could roughly determine that the hive of this nest of ghost bees should be between the fourth and fifth cells.

"Come on! Blackie!"

Only then did Fang Hongan wave to Wang Tong.

When Wang came over, Fang Hongan pointed to the top of the hive and said, "Go over there, let's take two pieces first! Make sure the opening of the cells is facing upwards, so that the pupae don't leak out!"

"okay!"

Wang Tong quickly turned to the opposite side of Fang Hongan.

These two layers of nests are actually not very big.

However, because there are a lot of honeycombs attached to the outside of the nest cell, it is really inconvenient for one person to carry it.

Two people can just about stabilize the entire hive and try not to disturb the queen bee that has already taken position.

The two of them joined hands and first tore off the nest skin, twisted it to break the sticky parts in the middle, and at the same time lifted it with all their strength.

The two layers of bees were lifted up directly.

"Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!"

A group of ghost bees flew out of the hive.

After carefully placing the nest with Fang Hongan, Wang Tong quickly picked up the beehive net and started scooping bees.

By the time the bees were collected, Fang Hongan had already moved out the third layer of nesting cells with great effort.

This nest is much heavier than the twenty pounds that Fang Hongan had estimated before.

It feels like it weighs at least 30 kilograms.

Wang Tong went to help, but Fang Hongan shook his head and said to him, "Put the beehive net on the ground and move the fourth floor!"

"it is good!"

Wang Tong nodded decisively.

Following Fang Hongan's instructions, the beehive was placed on the ground next to the beehive.

He lay down flat on his stomach, ready to work hard for the fourth nest.

After Fang Hongan turned around, picked up the beehive net and walked over to him, he made a gesture to him to take action. Then he grabbed the two ends of the fourth layer of the beehive with both hands, lifted it up with all his strength, and directly lifted up the entire layer of the beehive.

Fang Hongan shrank his eyes and immediately looked towards the fifth-floor beehive.

The queen bee is extremely quick to act and will evacuate and hide immediately upon sensing danger.

Many worker bees gathered on this floor to guard it. If we are not careful, the queen bee might slip away to the sixth or seventh floor.

It will be really troublesome to find it then.

As expected, it was just as Fang Hongan guessed.

As the fourth layer of the beehive opened, a ghost bee that was darker than ordinary ghost bees and had a fatter abdomen quickly crawled to the edge of the nest cell.

"There's no escape!"

Fang Hongan stretched out his right hand and accurately pinched the queen bee with his thumb and index finger.

Then he returned to his bamboo basket and took out a bottle from it.

He unscrewed the bottle cap and threw the queen bee directly into it.

The bottle contains the strong liquor that I bought on this trip to the county town.

Common bee-head is soaked in sweet potato liquor.

It is said that the queen bee of this ghost bee is much more effective in making wine soaked in wine than worker bees and drones.

It is more appropriate to soak it with high-proof liquor.

Of course, just this one is certainly not enough, but we will have to continue digging other hives of hornets in the future!
By the time Fang Hongan asked the queen bee to soak in the wine pool and then return to the hive, Wang Tong had already taken out the remaining layers of honeycombs.

Layers of beehives were stacked on the ground, and could be seen at a glance.

You can see a large area of ​​white bee pupae.

Pull Wang Tong out of the hollowed-out nest and let him rest for a while, as he was already panting.

Fang Hongan picked up the bee scooping net and started scooping up the crazy flying hornets around him.

After the queen bee was soaked in the wine bottle, these ghost bees could not receive the new queen bee pheromones.

While they madly attack intruders, they will also pursue hives with residual queen bee pheromones.

In order to make it easier to remove the bee pupae later, it is best to clean up all the ghost bees.

After resting for a while, Wang Tong joined in with another bee-catching net.

The two of them endured the scorching heat and cleaned for nearly half an hour, finally clearing all the ghost-headed bees around them.

"Let's go! Let's go back over there and enjoy the cool air!"

"There will be more ghost bees coming back here soon!"

After saying hello, Fang Hongan pulled Wang Tong back to the big pine tree where Xiang Qian was wearing the bee-proof suit.

They hid in the shade and took off their bee-proof clothes. They were soaked all over, as if they had just crawled out of the water. They collapsed directly and lay on the ground, drinking water from a kettle in big gulps.

A cool breeze blew.

The two of them immediately let out bursts of comfortable sighs in intoxication...

…………

Wait for the two of them to stand up again.

It was already more than half an hour later.

Just as Fang Hongan said, some ghost bees had gathered near the stacked beehive cells.

Fang Hongan observed and found that there were not many of them, probably only about twenty or so.

With this number of ghost bees, there is no need to wear thick and stuffy bee-proof clothing.

The two put on the beehive hats used when digging beehives, took the beehive nets, and walked out of the shade of the big pine tree. Just as they were about to clean up this last battlefield, a loud shout suddenly rang out from the bottom of the mountain:

"Hey! Stop! Don't go over there! There's a hive of hives over there!"

Hearing the call, Wang Tong's first reaction was to quickly put down the beehive net in his hand, then squatted down and pretended to be looking for something to dig on the ground.

This conditioned reflex-like reaction of his was formed after Fang Hongan and he had practiced it many times since they started digging for bees.

The two of them chased bees all over the mountains and dug beehives.

Although the mountains we chose were seldom visited by people, we usually left early and returned late.

Each time, the two of them would make sure that there was no one around before taking action.

But during this busy farming season, it is inevitable to run into people frequently.

And once they meet someone during the operation, they will try to hide.

Since I couldn't hide anymore, I pretended to be digging kudzu roots, winter thatch roots, etc.

Because of the fact that Fang Hongan's family was short of food, they were basically able to cope with it easily.

This is also the reason why the two have been digging for so long but no one in the village has discovered it.

Therefore, when he heard someone calling, Wang Tong's first reaction was to conceal his purpose.

However, as he squatted down, he heard the calling again.

The sound was clearly getting closer.

Stretching his neck to take a look, Wang Tong discovered that the shouting figure was already running towards them in a hurry.

"Brother! How come..."

Wang Tong's heart tightened, and he quickly turned his gaze to Fang Hongan, the backbone of his heart.

Upon seeing this, he found that Fang Hongan not only had no intention of concealing anything, but instead waved his hand at him, indicating that he could stop pretending and just stand up.

"kindness?"

Out of curiosity, Wang Tong focused his eyes and looked carefully at the figure that was already quite close.

"Taozi!"

After seeing the familiar face clearly, Wang Tong breathed a sigh of relief and stood up.

"I haven't seen him for a while, and I can hardly recognize his voice!"

Because of his close relationship with Fang Hongan, Wang Tong and Fang Chengtao were also close friends when he was in his teens.

I heard Fang Chengtao was back a few days ago, and I went to his house to look for him.

Unfortunately, Fang Chengtao happened to be out at that time, and I didn't meet him again because I was busy afterwards.

But I didn't expect to meet him at this time.

Fang Hongan also mentioned it to him about Fang Chengtao.

Fang Hongan wanted to get him to join in digging and raising bees.

Since this is the case, Wang Tong is not afraid at all that Taozi will see through their way of making money.

Seeing that Fang Chengtao obviously hadn't noticed the two of them, he smiled wickedly, put on his bee hat again, turned around, and looked like he was going to go straight to the hive of ghost bees with Fang Hongan.

At this moment.

Fang Chengtao, who had been shouting all the way up, finally caught up.

Because Fang Hongan and Wang Tong were both wearing beekeeper hats, their faces could not be clearly seen behind the indigo gauze even though they were more than ten meters away.

He had never seen this kind of bee-beam hat before, and just thought it was a sun hat that could cover the face to avoid the sun.

Seeing that the two men didn't listen to his shouts at all, Fang Chengtao didn't think much about it. He didn't care about being out of breath and shouted at them again:

"Hey! Are you two deaf? You can't hear me even after I called you so many times!
Ghost bees! Ghost bees! There's a nest of ghost bees over there! I saw it with my own eyes when I passed by yesterday!

You guys are still going there, you really want to die, right? "

Fang Chengtao was indeed anxious. In his excitement, not only was his saliva flying everywhere, but even his face, neck and ears were red!

The expression on his face was quite anxious, urgent, and a little angry.

Seeing his expression, Wang Tong grinned.

Of course he was grateful for Fang Chengtao's kind reminder.

But at this time, he also wanted to tease this good friend.

“Ghost-headed bees?” Wang Tong deliberately raised his voice and snorted disdainfully, “We are not afraid of ghost-headed bees!”

Fang Chengtao thought that this time, he would be able to stop these two reckless guys.

However, he didn't expect that the other party's reaction to his heartfelt call would be like this.

Wang Tong was so angry that he choked. He stomped his feet, pointed at Wang Tong and shouted again: "Are you crazy! Ghost Head Bee! Aren't you afraid? You are a birthday star who wants to hang himself because you think his life is too long, right..."

Fang Chengtao's aura, which was so anxious that it turned red, was comparable to that of his father Fang Dajingang.

But Wang Tong shook his head and put on an arrogant look: "We...are doing this to clean up the business of the ghost-headed bees!"

"Clean up the ghost bees?" Fang Chengtao was even more puzzled when he heard this. His expression was as if he had met an unreasonable fool. "What are you using..."

He was just about to ask a serious question, but halfway through his speech, Wang Tong opposite him suddenly took off the beehive hat on his head.

His black face with white teeth and a silly smile was revealed.

"Hei...Hei Zai!"

Fang Chengtao's eyes widened as if he had seen a ghost.

then……

He turned his head abruptly, looking Fang Hongan up and down, and then asked again in a surprised voice: "Hongan?"

"hehe!"

Fang Hongan smiled, took off his bee hat, and pressed his hand towards him: "Don't be surprised! Don't be anxious!"

"I...I suck it!"

"It turns out to be you!"

"That's what I told you! Who else would be so unwilling to listen to advice?"

"So it was you two who were teasing me on purpose!"

Seeing that it was two people, Fang Chengtao's tension and anger instantly disappeared. He rolled his eyes and slapped the two men's shoulders heavily.

"What the hell are you two doing here at this time? I thought you were two blind and deaf people. I was so worried!"

He sighed and vented for a while, then Fang Chengtao suddenly changed his expression and hugged the two of them with a smile:
"What a coincidence! Hongan! I was just about to go to your room to call you! It just so happens that Heizi is here today! Let's go! I caught a rat snake (Elaphe dione) when I was digging the soil yesterday. It's so thick! So long! It weighs at least three and a half kilograms!
My dad is going to ask my mom to kill another chicken and make a dragon and phoenix soup! In the evening, let me ask you to come to my house for dinner! Don't worry! It's just our family including you!"

Fang Chengtao said as he gestured excitedly!

"Three and a half pounds of rat snakes!" Wang Tong's eyes lit up, and he looked greedy. "That's a good thing! And I can make dragon and phoenix soup with it. It will make me bleed from the nose!"

Nowadays, people like to be polite and most of the words they say are polite.

But for close friends like these three, there is no beating around the bush when they are together, and everyone speaks directly.

Fang Hongan listened to Fang Chengtao's words and knew that Fang Hongjiang made such arrangements probably to repay the favor of the three kilograms of eels.

As it happened, Fang Hongan had a deep experience when he collected this nest of devil bees.

For him and Wang Tong, the limit is almost one nest a day.

If you want to do more, you will have to recruit more helpers.

Originally, he was thinking that after his beekeeping business was exposed, he would see Taozi's willingness and then get him to join when the time was right.

But now we have also added the business of digging out beehives of black bees!
It just so happened that Fang Chengtao also encountered it this time.

perhaps……

This meal could also be a good opportunity to settle this matter.

Thinking of this, Fang Hongan nodded and agreed decisively.

"Okay! Let's go down the mountain first! The weather is so hot, let's go take a bath in the river together! There is nothing to dig on this barren mountain!"

Seeing that both of them agreed, Fang Chengtao put his arms around their shoulders and prepared to walk down.

"Take a shower?" Wang Tong shook his head. "We'll take a shower after we finish digging out this nest of ghost wasps!"

"???"

Fang Chengtao was stunned. "Dig ghost bees? What ghost bees?"

He saw that Wang Tong's expression was very serious and definitely didn't look like he was joking.

Moreover, based on his understanding of Wang Tong, he would not joke with him at this time.

After a moment of hesitation, his gaze involuntarily turned in the direction of the nest of hornets he had discovered before.

That's the look...

His whole face was blank again.

(End of this chapter)