Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire

Even in our office in the Royal Chambers, I felt the hive mind's presence in the vicinity. It didn't grow any less noticeable, and I could only focus on ignoring it like I blocked out the drone of all the individual minds of bees in the Bee Empire.

Ignoring was easier when I sat in my chair and focused on the business.

"The hive mind will need many tutors. Specialised tutors who will be able to teach them not just the basics of the world and crafts, but also how to interact with society. But good news—they can be taught all these things at once."

Amby took a chair on the opposite side of the work desk and nodded in understanding.

"This will save a lot of work for Teacher Bees. Instead of teaching several thousand bees, each of them will only have to teach one. But my Chief Teachers and I will have to come up with some way to teach the hive mind social skills…"

Normally, something like 'social skills' wouldn't be a problem for a newborn bee. They had their instincts to rely on, after all. However, the culture of the Bee Empire has long ago evolved past the Stone Age basics they once had.

Now there were many things like names, puns, symbols of rank and job, and so on. All of them were important to work effectively in the Empire and to befriend one's sisters.

"Yeah, maybe they will just make an entirely new study course just for the hive mind. Bees usually pick up most of these things from their Teachers or older classmates while they learn in school or have internships in their first job positions, but I don't think this will work out for a hive mind."

Amby put a finger on her chin.

"We can have the hive mind to place a few of their… hm, a few of their bees to various school classes, just to interact with other bees." She paused and frowned. "No, I don't think they will befriend each other without some outside help. The hive mind is too different from ordinary bees."

"Some could even argue that a hive mind isn't a bee," I mused, but as soon as I saw Amby's confused and slightly alarmed gaze, I vigorously shook my head. "No, not myself! This was just a random thought, forget it. Of course, the hive mind is a bee. It's made out of bees, after all. If anything, they are more a bee than any other bee."

My wife raised her eyebrows.

"This is a nice explanation, Necty. It will make it easier for our other daughters to understand what a hive mind is. As for tutors to help them with sociabilities… Perhaps we can ask Worriesgone about it. Artists are the ones who know the most about our culture."

I beamed at Amby. "This is a great idea! Let's do it now."

***

Worriesgone was only eager to help, of course. Together with her, we first made a rough idea of a school curriculum, then a more solid plan, which was swiftly executed. The next day, the hive mind (which didn't come up with a name for itself yet) began its homeschooling.

A few dozen of its bees in total were sent to learn from various teachers. I theorised that, with how many thought chains a hive mind of this size could have at once, the entire school program could be split into parallel threads and taught to the hive mind in just a few days…

But because things had to be taught in an order to be understood, this was just a theory.

The hive mind has already learnt incredibly fast. Stunningly so!

Even ordinary hive minds learnt new things with the speed of lightning thanks to their limit broken 'Fast Learner' gene.

But being a part of the hive mind amplified this ability even more.

As soon as their tutor explained A, the hive mind learnt not just B and C, but half the alphabet!

To my relief, this amazing level of understanding spread to social things, too. The Artist Bees sent to explain the hive mind, our culture didn't have to work too hard.

Especially since in the end, half of the work was done for them.

The thing was, although a few dozen Hardbees were busy learning, most of them had absolutely nothing to do. The hive mind itself was busy, but for it, this was like having a pair of idle hands. Or a few thousand pairs.

Which were some of the worst things that could happen to a bee. It was boredom! Laziness! Lack of contribution to the colony!

To prevent the hive mind from growing depressed from forced idleness, I arranged for their members to be sent to various low-skill jobs (mostly as hauliers or Cleaners) as apprentices.

Some of these Hardbees went to assist the Artists. The hive mind had enough creativity to try drawing things itself.

It was during these apprenticeships that the hive mind could test its theoretical social lessons in practice, and the other bees could get used to the hive mind's presence.

A week passed like that, and new generations of Hardbees in them (generations that were morphotyped a while ago and couldn't be changed now) also formed hive minds. At least now I knew what to do with them.

After this week, I knew that at least my efforts to teach the hive mind how to be, well, a BEE weren't for nought.

They have picked themselves a name, and it was truly a 900 IQ name that only a hive mind could come up with.

They decided to call themselves Precio-Us.

Precio-Us has also learnt the basics of just about any job that Hardbees were commonly sent to. They declared that they could keep studying any of them and work on several at once.

They weren't lying.

Another week showed that Precio-Us had sufficient mental capacity for its members to work independently of one another, while still maintaining synchrony and efficiency. It was… amazing, honestly.

Workharder reported a 5-35% effectiveness increase in workplaces with Precio-Us workers.

But I didn't take the hive mind gene just for this!