Qiao Qiao's wish to touch the bee was not fulfilled. Now he squatted there, looking at it eagerly:
"Why can't I?"
The beekeeper was familiar with Song Sancheng and knew Qiao Qiao's situation. He was coaxing her like a child:
"Because you are not familiar with them now, if you stretch out your hand, the bees will think you are going to hit them and will sting you."
He closed the beehive again and then reminded her: "Don't touch it. If a bee stings you, it will hurt, but if it stings you, it will kill you. This little thing is pitiful."
"Besides," he stretched out his hand for everyone to see, all covered with calluses and thick joints, "I have thick skin and flesh, so I'm used to it a long time ago."
Qiao Qiao looked at his hand and then stretched out his own palm. Wulan loved cleanliness and had always kept him neat and tidy since he was a child. Now this hand was also delicate, white, and had distinct joints.
If it weren't for the fact that he had been doing farm work a little roughly during this period, he would probably look like a pampered young man.
He let out a long sigh of loss, then turned his head to look elsewhere.
On this side, Song Sancheng and Song Tan looked at the beehives one by one and asked about the price - in short, 560 per box, no less!
Song Sancheng hesitated: "Will there be other flowers after we finish with Astragalus? If there are not so many flowers in the future, we don't need so many beehives."
Song Tan was thinking: Since she is here, the beehive is not expensive, at most she can just use her spiritual energy to raise it! Honey is a good thing!
So he counted on his fingers: "In the next two months, the astragalus will bloom, and then the chestnuts will also bloom. The pink peaches and white pears in our village will be enough for them to eat. After June and July, the weather will be hot, and the bees will take a break. There will be vegetables in the vegetable garden, and I am also planning to plant a field of sunflowers..."
If you think about it this way, I can afford it anyway.
Song Sancheng felt a headache after hearing this - his daughter just talked and the father had to run himself to death!
Planting chestnuts and sunflowers, he has endless farm work this year!
"Okay, okay, you have the final say!"
Song Tan then made the decision: "I want five boxes!"
The beekeeper laughed - this time he had earned nearly three thousand dollars.
But he still gave one more reminder: "Keeping bees is simple. Just put the beehives away. If there are any problems, don't mess around. Call me and I'll come to check it out."
I had just paid the bill when I suddenly heard a loud howl!
"Ah..."
Qiao Qiao's originally fair face was covered with tears, and she ran out of the woods crying.
He clenched one hand into a fist, and the base of his palm was red, swollen and shiny, obviously because he had been stung by a bee.
Song Tan didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Didn't I tell you not to touch bees?"
Qiao Qiao felt wronged and cried even louder:
"I found a really fat one..."
"This fat one can work, the queen bee..."
Obviously he remembered the handful of bees that the beekeeper had just caught.
The beekeeper was stunned: "That's impossible, how can the queen bee leave the hive..."
He leaned over while muttering.
Qiao Qiao carefully clenched his fist with his other hand and slowly opened it.
In the palm of his hand, a plump bee as big as a thumbnail was lying there cautiously. It had yellow and black stripes and was furry, and it was indeed big, round, and plump.
It's actually quite cute.
…
The beekeeper laughed and said, "Oh, that's nothing! This is a bumblebee, and its temper is just like our bees. As long as you don't catch it, it generally won't sting you, and it's okay to touch it occasionally."
Qiao Qiao didn't quite understand what was said, and at this moment she stretched out her bright red palm forward.
The beekeeper laughed again: "It will definitely hurt for a while. I'll have some medicine to apply on it for you later. This should be a newly-unearthed queen bee. It's very big."
"A normal bumblebee is a little bit smaller than this."
Song Tan was also quite interested.
She flicked a trace of spiritual energy at her fingertips, and the queen bee, which had been flapping its wings to fly, now staggered and clung to her fingers.
Song Sancheng was startled: "Ouch!"
Song Tan quickly comforted him: "Dad, it's okay! Look, it didn't sting me - how cute!"
The furry, chubby ball was so cute as it rubbed itself against her fingers.
Qiao Qiao was staring at him intently, and forgot about the revenge she had taken.
The beekeeper brought some medicine from the house and applied it to Qiao Qiao. He then glanced at the bumblebee and said,
"You can play with it for a while and then let it go. The queen bee is waiting to lay eggs and hatch them."
Song Tan thought for a moment and asked, "Can this be raised? Does it produce a lot of honey?"
The beekeeper laughed and said, "Of course we can. This queen bee can give birth to more than a hundred bees. She is more hardworking and diligent than honey bees!"
"There is one thing. They earn a lot and eat a lot. If you want to feed them, you can't get more than one ounce of honey from their mouths throughout the year - it's not even enough for them to eat!"
"If they don't get pollen and nectar for an hour, they will faint. It's just like hypoglycemia. If they don't get any more, they will die."
Having said that, even Song Sancheng's eyes sparkled with a hint of smile:
"How can this be a bumblebee? Isn't this the same as that piglet?"
But Qiao Qiao had already heard this sentence.
Although he didn't fully understand it, it didn't stop him from blinking and looking over pitifully:
"Sister, I want to raise..."
He looked at the bumblebee crawling on Song Tan's finger, it was so cute. Now that his wound had healed and he had forgotten the pain, he reached out his hand again.
However, the smell of the medicinal oil on his hand was too strong, and the bumblebee flew away with a buzzing sound.
After circling twice, he was still reluctant to give up that little bit of spiritual energy, so he lay down again.
Beekeepers are also happy—
"If you want to raise it, just raise it. When the time comes, find a small box and prepare some sugar water for it. Don't worry about anything else."
"This queen bee will lay eggs as soon as it emerges from the soil. At that time, it will secrete beeswax in the box and make a small jar little by little. The eggs are all in that small jar."
"Then you sit on it and shake it continuously. When the temperature rises, the worker bees hatch. It's quite interesting to raise them."
But in the end, he added: "But it's really not profitable. They eat too much."
"Besides, they are not as stable as bees. They may fly away at the right time."
Song Tan moved his fingers and saw that the bumblebee was firmly clinging to his fingers. He smiled confidently:
"Does it still hurt, Qiao Qiao?"
Qiao Qiao looked at the bumblebee, then looked at his palm, and sniffed: "It hurts."
"Will you grab things again next time?"
Qiao Qiao sobbed and burst into tears of grievance.
Song Sancheng's heart melted when he saw this, and he hurriedly coaxed him: "I won't catch him next time, I won't catch him next time."
Song Tan snorted and laughed, then asked the beekeeper for a small wooden box and put the bumblebees in it. Then he stuffed the box into Qiao Qiao's hands:
"Hold it, don't open it, or it will run away if you scare it."