Chapter 9

Chapter 9 LET'S GIVE NATURE A HAND…. AFTER ALL, NATURE GAVE US HANDS TO START WITH! There was nothing more they could do for the Stonesword bees. Doc needed time to run tests, but she promised to tell Harper as soon as she'd learned anything. In the meantime, the kids had a flower forest biome to rebuild. Their saplings had already grown into adult trees, but the Minecraft bees wouldn't multiply on their own. "Okay, Morgan," said Harper. "You're the expert. How do we breed bees?" "It's easy," Morgan answered. "TO START, WE JUST NEED FLOWERS." "Oh!" said Po, who was dressed as a giant flower. "It's so nice to be needed."

Theo rolled his eyes. "You won't be so happy when the bees mistake you for lunch," he said. "IT'S WORKING!" said Jodi, and she ran past them, laughing. She held a purple allium flower in her hand, and a bee was following her wherever she went. "We don't know how many bees we'll need in order to receive their message," said Morgan. "But let's assume it's a big number. We'll want a lot of flowers."

"WE CAN EXPLORE THE NEARBY BIOMES," said Harper. "We'll gather whatever flowers we find and bring them back here." "Even better if we find some bone meal," said Theo. "That will encourage new flowers to grow." "PICKING FIGHTS WITH SKELETONS?" said Po. "Who knew that raising bees would be so adventurous?" The work went quickly once everyone had their assignments. Jodi in particular enjoyed the task of finding various flowers, and Theo liked replanting them in the flower forest. Morgan proved adept at flushing skeletons out of caves and leading them into an ambush. Po especially liked defeating the undead mobs while dressed as a flower. Harper took on the task of breeding more bees. She would wait until Jodi and Theo had an extra flower to spare, then she would feed the flower to the nearest bee. Soon, several little baby bees fluttered through the forest. "They need a place to live," Harper said of the baby bees. "There's no room for them in the nest." "I've got an idea for that," said Morgan. "BUT WE NEED HONEYCOMB FIRST." Morgan showed Harper how the Minecraft bees acted much like their real-world counterparts.

"Watch," he said. "The bees will fly to a flower to collect nectar. Then they'll return to their nest to make honey with it." Harper noticed that little flecks of yellow stuck to the bees' bodies when they interacted with a flower. "IS THAT POLLEN?" she asked. "Yeah," said Morgan. "Again, it's just like real life. The bees get pollen on them, and the pollen spreads all over the forest. It can make some plants grow faster. Crops and berry bushes, for instance." "We should plant some berry bushes," Harper suggested. "I think they'd look nice in our forest." Sometime later, after the sun had gone down, Harper saw what Morgan had been waiting for. "Look," she said. "THEIR NEST IS DRIPPING WITH HONEY." "We'll have to be careful with this next part," he said. "Since it's night, the bees are inside their nest, and we don't want to upset them. Get your shears ready. But don't use them until I say." Harper watched as Morgan lit a campfire beneath the honey-heavy nest. "SMOKE FROM THE FIRE WILL KEEP THE BEES CALM," he said. "Now you can use the shears on the nest to cut away some honeycomb."

Harper did just as he said. With a quick snip, several pieces of honeycomb fell into her inventory.

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