Widow Honeybees

Dancing across the garden of death, the gleaming widow honeybees find their way home after a long day of pollinating a field of devil's hope.

Widow honeybees are best-known for honey produced from devil's hope nectar. This honey has a minty like tone to it. When turned into a mead known as Spirit's Nectar, the resulting drink is said to 'warm the body and chill the soul.'

Pollinating Rebels

Widow honeybees are the badass pollinators of the Claw Continent. While most pollinators stay away from noxious gases, widow honeybees build their hives near plants like devil's hope.
Devil's Hope is a noxious plant that produces a colorless, odorless, and invisible gas. Its aura is deadly to humanoids, most other fauna, fungi, and flora. Widow honeybees have developed the ability to withstand the gas.

The Hives

Dead trees have hives built and abandoned as the honey levels became too great. Trees completely covered in hives have been storing honey for nearly a decade. Most of these hives have been abandoned. Death walkers run several tests to make sure there are no bees inside before carefully removing the honey combs.
Patches of hives cover the ground in the bees' failed attempts at building a standing structure. These patches are difficult to navigate and can be hidden beneath the leaves of the devil's hope.
Finally, the towers built by widow honeybees are similar to palaces and wizard's towers. These mechas of honey have the most honey available, however, they are nearly impossible to harvest without disrupting active hives. Several death walkers have died in the process of harvest honey from a tower, giving them the name 'the widow's celebrant.'

Basic Information

Anatomy

Crocean Honeybees are mostly familiar to visitors. They have four wings and fly up to 20 miles per hour. Their bodies are made up of a head, thorax, and abdomen. Two antennae sit atop their heads.
Upon closer inspection, chelicerae protrude from the jaws of Crocean Honeybees in place of the standard mandibles. Instead of six legs, they have eight. The yellow and black stripes are broken up by a faintly glowing hourglass on their abdomen.

Ecology and Habitats

Crocean Honeybees are native to the Claw Continent, spanning from the Arachnae Wilderness to the port-city La Chiave a Croce. They prefer flowers and are drawn into areas with the flower, Devil's Hope.

Biological Cycle

Foragers are worker bees who sleep 5-7 hours a night. In the hours just before and after sleep, they can be seen buzzing home, glowing all the way.
Worker bees in charge of building the honeycombs sleep in turns with each other, regardless of the day-night cycle.
Drones mostly sleep until they are called upon by the queen.
Given the warm climate of the Northern Claw Continent, widow honeybees only go dormant for a few weeks in the year. During this time, they cluster together in the hive to keep warm.

Image of Widow Honeybees

Dusk, a field of devil's hope, honeybees faintly glowing head towards their hive.

by Lauren Nelson (Lnphysics, self)

Common Names

Crocean Honeybees
Widow Bees
Lightbees
Lightning Bees
Widow Makers

Geographic Distribution

• Arachnae Wilderness
• Vie Aranche