Bee inspired race

>implying implicit implications

That actually sounds like an interesting setup
Eusocial species are an unexplored subject in fantasy but that has lots of potential to be interesting.

Depends if you want the society to be directly based on bees or loosely inspired by it.

Each colony usually has only one queen (though it's not nearly as simple as most people think--there are power grabs and power struggles, even). Bees don't quite have a male/female split the way humans do; queens and workers are both haploid, drones are diploid.

Unless you're an epicurean, odds are good that workers constitute all the bees you've ever seen. They represent the vast majority of the colony. They harvest nectar and pollen to build their hives to store their larvae and to make food to last through the winter (although the majority of the workers die for the winter).

Drones exist solely for breeding. When a new queen is born (usually once per year) she and a few drones go out to meet up with other recently-born queens and drones and get buzzy. Then with all the sperm they've collected, they find a place to make a new hive.

I might be misremembering some of this. Check out More Than Honey and the sixth episode of Life in the Undergrowth for more.

>women are the only sentient members of their race
>sentient
So women are the only ones able to percieve or feel things? Wow, that sounds like a pretty large gap between the two.

To add to these, one of the main theories for cooperation in a hive is kin selection.

Because of the haploid/diploid sexual development, every worker shares on average 75% (50 or 100) of their genetic material with each other (in terms of "stuff passed down from their parents").

They share 50% with the queens, and 25% (50 or 0) with their brother drones, which could explain why the drones are the first to go when times get tough.

It turns out having your own offspring isn't always the best way to pass on your genes. For the non-reproducing worker bees, the best way is to contribute to the survival of the hive and raise your sisters, so some of them will grow up to be queens and leave to establish her own hive - passing on the genes that you share the bulk of.

Your magical realm post made me think of the "Bee People" race in 3.5, here's pics of that if it helps.

(1/3)

(2/3)

(3/3)

worker bees can't have sex at least.

...

Interesting idea OP, and you have patrician taste in Monster Girls. I know this isn't what you asked for, but this reminds me of a race of Anthropomorphic Bears in my stone-age setting that are only race to have mastered the art of beekeeping.

As for your question, I don't think one Hive could reach the power of an entire nation, but I think a loosely aligned coalition of Hives, with each one functioning as its own independent city state ruled by a Queen or council of Queens, is feasible and would work for whatever you've got planned, OP.

That's just my two cents.

It's a sight better than the Elf Slave, wat do? threads of yore, and some nice OC might happen. Go complain elsewhere.

Bump for interesting idea

BEES ARE GAY
ANTS ALL THE WAY

youtube.com/watch?v=8CvqmD0CZao

...

Sage for stupid idea

Such rampant faggotry, every plebian and their dog knows honey is raw ultimate sweetener.

>honey
>ultimate sweetener
Yeah, nah.
You can't sweeten hot liquids with honey, because honey loses almost all of its taste when heated. You can't use it as a preservant, unlike sugar. It goes bad and/or loses its taste real fast after gathering.
The only real use for honey is either pastry (added after the actual pastry is done), or mixing it with water/alcohol.

If they're like bees, then each hive is best conceptualized as its queen's extended phenotype. The workers and drones are effectively extensions of the queen, a single great body capable of existing in multiple places at once. Much like cells in a single organism, they work collectively toward the survival of the whole even though there is no hive mind or other form of shared intellect, because each component fills a critical role.

Also like cells, individual components can "decide" to "prioritize" their own survival over the group's, becoming cancerous. Workers can experience anomalous reactivation of their reproductive systems and begin covertly competing with the queen.

Picture this: A hive is like a human, if each of his organs had distinct personalities and motivations. Most of the time they'd all work together to keep the body alive because they're organs and that's what they do; the body's survival is a natural result of them all just doing the thing they'd do naturally. But the body can grow extra organs in times of plenty and cull all nonessential organs when resources are tight, and sometimes organs can decide that fuck the food shortage, they don't want to die, the body can just deal with supporting them, or that maybe they should take their shit and go build another body somewhere else, with blackjack and hookers.

eatbydate.com/other/sweets/honey-shelf-expiration-date/
Everyone says honey pretty much lasts forever. Now I'm no beekeeper, but if you are, I'd like to know why this isn't true, out of genuine interest.

The only thing that keeps honey fresh is, you guessed it, sugar. Glucose, if we're being pedantic.
The problem with honey that it's neither dry, nor in a liquid form - it's an amorphous substance, like chocolate. That's not the reason why it "goes bad" after gathering, though - it is edible almost indefinitely, because SUGAR is edible almost indefinitely. Meaning that if you store honey long enough, it is functionally no different from sugar. Except it's way harder to store, because you can't store honey in a bag or something, because it's an amorphous substance.

tl;dr the problem of honey isn't that it becomes inedible, but because it becomes literally sugar in much more inferior form after a certain amount of time - it's diluted, it's amorphous and it's not worth the trouble when you have - you guessed it - sugar.

>bee inspired
>Men have a very barbaric society where they'll fight wars
So nothing like bees then?

Male eusocial insects are almost universally only born around mating season, live their entire life tucked away until it's time to breed at which point they leave for a very brief period of sex and then die.

>You can't sweeten hot liquids with honey
Tell that to my tea you uncultured swine.

Also I've used it in making sweet soups. Works wonders.

>Tell that to my tea you uncultured swine.
Except the tea tastes like shit after that. You are basically adding sap/sugar to it.
Honey is best consumed without mixing it, raw, a spoonful after a spoonful.

>Honey is best consumed without mixing it, raw, a spoonful after a spoonful.
Are you a giant bee?

If you insist on combining honey with tea, DON'T ACTUALLY MIX THEM TOGETHER, YOU DUNCE.

The proper way to eat honey with tea is to drink a gulp of tea, then eat a spoonful of honey, rinse, repeat.

DON'T MIX HONEY WITH TEA, YOU ARE RUINING BOTH.

>tea tastes like shit after honey
>eat the honey by the spoonful
We have finally found the fusion of Britfag and Amerifat.

Except everything you just said is wrong.
It's like you hate being correct or something.

You realize that honey has things beyond taste? Things like texture, for example.
Hell, the taste of the honey depends on what herbs/flowers/trees were used during its gathering by the bees, just like tea has its own distinct flavor depending on the kind of leaves.
When you're mixing them, you're ruining the individual flavors.

You gotta join the circus, Not human beings are this talented at talking out of their respective asses.

>When you're mixing them, you're ruining the individual flavors
I take it you only eat individual ingredients for all your meals?

Here's the (You) you've been craving.

>They share 50% with the queens, and 25% (50 or 0) with their brother drones,
The actual percentages are usually much higher. You're forgetting that queens and drones have a lot of genetic overlap.

>Honey is best consumed without mixing it, raw, a spoonful after a spoonful.

You have a few basic problems with your concept.

First of all, if the male members of the race are not sapient (that is, being able to make judgements for themselves) then they don't have a barbaric society. The have no society. They are little more than a pack of mice. You'd need to come up with some reason for the women (the queens) to even consider using them in such a state. Are there packs of males just roaming around, which the queen then hunts several when she wants mates? Or does the bee-people society keep their few males hidden away?

Please note that, in a bee hive, the drones are all female. In fact, nearly every bee you will ever see is female, due to the bees being capable of choosing what sex a larva will hatch as. (Thanks to temperate differences making that change.)

So, if you want to have a race where only the women are intelligent and they rule over mindless beast-males, then you would need to give them some sort of telepathic ability (perhaps only racially related) which allows them to "command" and control the male drones. Otherwise, you'd likely be looking into a psudo-amazon society, possibly with a low male birth rate/choice to birth males. If the males are always retarded is up to you.

>I'm struggling on what abilities to give them and the females appearance.
Just make them large insectoid things. I mean, you could certainly get freaky and have the females look almost-human and the males look like giant bugs; sexual dimorphism is a thing. But given how strange the society is going to be to begin with, might as well make it obvious by not having them look human in the first place. You could certainly make the queen larger and brightly colored while the males are dull looking, if you want a broad distinction.

And a followup:

You will likely want to think about food sources and so on. Pollen for honey is a nice idea, but there are only so many pollen sources and human-sized creatures require a lot more food than bee-sized ones. So having them run around and suck all the pollen out of flowers in a forest is going to seem rather silly. It might not be your primary concern, but it would probably help to establish ideas of what the race prioritizes and what common tools they would have for weapons.

>What would such a race look like when they achieve nation size would they have just one queen or multiple or could they never achieve nation size?

Anything nation-sized is going to require a large number of individuals. As in, tens of thousands to millions. Bees accomplish this by turning the queen into a baby-making factory and little else. Assuming you want your queen to be a ruler and making some sort of decisions, each "bee-race" hive is likely to be smaller than a normal bee colony. This means that they would need to work together to some extent. This doesn't need to be a peaceful sense of harmony (they could just section off areas of a city and "own" their parts) but it would mean they don't simply kill on sight, which is what bees do to queens of other hives.

>Has anyone on TG ever tried something similar?
It works a lot better if you establish the (non-breeding) workers as genderless.

>Has anyone on TG ever tried something similar?

I have; Bee Women are one of the "Anthropod People" races I've got going, along with: Ant, Wasp, and Scorpion.

I don't know how much spill over there'll be, but you're welcome to pick and take what you like:

>Ecology
Bee Women are an almost exclusively female species of primitive "Anthropod People". Bee Women stand at about 10 to 14 inches tall (25cm-35cm) with queens being about 2ft tall (60cms), with the species often being mistaken for 'large fairies'. Bee Women primarily subsist off of honey and pollen which they produce from either wild or domesticated flower fields (grown themselves), but they're herbivorous by nature and will supplement their diets with foraged greens, fruit, nuts, or grown crops.
Bee Women reproduce 'once' a year or every 2nd year (depending on food stores): the queen will lay a dozen or so eggs which will be sealed within specifically labeled/branded wax cones, when the eggs hatch; half will be males(drones) & half will be fertile females (queens). The Drones & Queens are fed royal jelly and given larger quantities of food than standard workers; once they pupate and mature they will be chased out of the hive to reproduce with other colonies exiled females/males. Drones have a life span of 3-5 months, so they really need to boogie.

(Part 1, part 2 inc)

>Society
Bee Women build large, extensive, hives either in ancient old growth trees or cave/cliff faces adjacent to places rich in plant resources, these hives can house anywhere from 25 to 500 individuals(This can vary slightly though: in the desert they will bore into sandstone for instance). Their culture/society is a 'true hive' mentality; with the queen not actually being in charge and individuals cooperating through a instinctive sympathetic consensus while still retaining individual personalities. Bee Women inline with other animal/anthropod people, "cannot harness fire" meaning they produce no metal tools and will only use primitive tools unless interfered with or scavenged. Skilled horticulturalists; Bee women are capable of growing massive gardens and large orchards, going so far as to even plant giant carnivorous plants to protect their communities.

>Cross-Species Interaction
Bee Women are wary of other animal people -whom typically steal honey or produce- and will often attack them on sight, the exception though is Bunny People, whom they'll often live adjacent to.
Gnomes/Dwarves are sympathetic and appreciate the qualities and products of Bee Women; often trading metal goods for high quality agricultural goods.
Pixies, Fairies, Brownies, etc.. are ironically distrusted and disliked due to clashing cultural differences and values- the fey aren't fought with, but they do avoid one another.
Bee Women domesticate no animals as they cannot digest dairy and are strictly herbivorous.

There ya go, those are my notes.

A race that *didn't* consider males expendable would be far more interesting.

I've noticed that you didn't actually dispute his point.

I drink honey straight.
I drink tea without sweetening.
I still think taking the honey after the tee is disgusting.

Thank you for taking some awful magical realm thread and making it good. Can you believe Veeky Forums used to do this all the time?

What "point"?

Women exsit to fuck over men?

Great point there. Sure is something to mull over. Really gets at the heart of societal issues.

People exist to fuck over people.

Wasps are better.

scp-wiki.net/scp-1702
>The only thing that I think could improve this article would be the removal of the stuff about chitin and antennae. It feels like it would be creepier to have a colony of outwardly normal women who, oh yeah, vomit bone and tear apart their queen when she becomes "damaged." Just a thought, but this article is still great.

This thread inspires bugspray