THE villa courtyard where the Flute Bee nest sat looked beautiful in the height of spring.
There were poppies, violets, rhododendrons, and even some early blooming roses throughout the garden. Perhaps they were planted there not just to please the eye, but for the Flute Bees to collect nectar from as well.
“All right, allow me to begin. Please watch closely.” Lady Fillia began to play notes from the transverse flute in her hands.
I wasn’t able to watch her play the previous time due to Princess Ileze’s intrusion, so I fixed my attention on her now that I had a second opportunity. She looked like something out of a painting, playing her flute against a backdrop of colorful flowers.
The Flute Bees buzzed around in harmony with Lady Fillia’s song. They drew circles in the air, but were capable of detailed maneuvers without a single bee straying. No average honeybee could do what they did.
The melody gracefully slid from low notes to high notes, its tempo speeding and slowing.
Finally, she guided the Flute Bees into the box with her tune. They would stay still until Lady Fillia played the flute again, allowing me to safely harvest their honey.
“How did you like seeing them fly?” Lady Fillia removed the flute from her lips to ask me that.
“It was wonderful. Your performance and the way you guided those bees were both splendid to watch.”
“Thank you very much. …What do you think of the Flute Bees, Queen Laetitia?” Her voice came out somewhat hesitant.
I felt like she was seeking something deeper than my flowery words of praise.
“They’re insects with abilities that are very useful to humans…but as a single species, I can’t help but think of them as somewhat weak,” I said.
“Weak?”
“Yes. Their abilities are why they’re kept and protected by humans, but I don’t think they’d be able to live in the wild without that protection.”
They were just like silkworms.
In the natural world, with no humans to care for them or instruct them with flutes, there was little chance of survival for a Flute Bee. That was why they could only be found in an area within the southern region—anywhere else, and they were quick to die in the wild.
“For example, if you guided them into a river with your flute, every last one of them would fall in and drown. Isn’t that true?”
“It’s true. Tragic things like that have happened when the flute player isn’t skilled enough.”
“That’s why I called them weak. They’re short-lived creatures whose entire hive will die together if the flute player can’t protect them. It’s genuinely very impressive that your dukedom has kept these Flute Bees for generations and used them to create your specialty honey.” I made sure to work in some praise for her family to end the discussion on a positive note.
“…Thank you for your interesting remarks. I’ll take them into consideration.” Lady Fillia closed her eyes and smiled softly. She put her flute away and gave orders to a servant to retrieve the hive from the bees’ box. “Please wait a moment. Larvae are supposed to be in a separate compartment, but I’m going to have them confirm there aren’t any in this one.”
“Of course.”
Once the servant finished up, it was finally my turn. I would start by removing the top portion of the hive so that the honey inside would remain enclosed.
“Blade of wind!”
A light, whooshing sound emitted.
My precise blade had cleanly removed the “lid” portion from the rest of the hive.
“I see. I never thought that magic could be used like that. It’s faster and more precise than a real blade, and it seems to cause almost no damage to the rest of the hive.” Lady Fillia looked impressed.
I’d cleared the very first stage.
“Oh, but please keep watching. I haven’t finished yet.”
I chanted another spell, producing arms of wind that lifted the hive and began to spin it around in the air. Then I enveloped the rotating hive in a wall of wind. The centrifugal force of the motion ejected the honey outside of the hive, where it hit the wall and dripped downward.
On a basic level, it was no different from a centrifuge.
At the bottom of the circular wall was a hole for the honey to drain out, landing safely in the bucket underneath.
“I’m finished now. I believe this method produces honey with even fewer impurities.”
In this country, honey was usually harvested by slicing off the top of the hive, tilting the hive on its side, and allowing gravity to take over. But the sticky substance wouldn’t drip down cleanly and often got stuck inside the hive. The process of removing that remaining honey could contaminate it with crumbs of the hive itself.
Filtering the honey became a difficult process when there were so many impurities mixed in, and the more of them that remained, the more the taste of the honey was affected.
But my method of utilizing centrifugal force greatly reduced these impurities as a way of extracting honey without damaging the hive. This also meant the bees needed less time to produce the next batch of honey, since their hive remained intact. There were many significant merits.
Lady Fillia stared at the honey I’d harvested, seeming to understand the benefits of the method I just demonstrated.
“That’s amazing. I had no idea a method like this existed…” Her eyes moved from the honey back to me. “There are only one or two sorcerers within this country that would be capable of controlling wind spells with such subtlety. Unfortunately, I don’t think we could recreate it without a sorcerer such as yourself.”
“That might not be the case for long.”
“…Is that so?”
I nodded firmly. “I had someone from the Bureau of Magic take a look at this method, and they advised me that it might be possible to recreate independently through the use of a specially developed crest tool.”
I had the seal of approval from the Bureau of Magic.
The fundamentals behind a centrifuge weren’t particularly complicated, and crest tools that rotated items already existed as well. The bureau told me it should be possible to create what I needed by modifying one of these existing tools.