Chapter 85: Preparations Before Harvesting Honey

Of course, one must prepare well before taking honey; honey is even more important than meat. A bowl of meat soup does not provide as much energy as a bowl of sugar water, and honey can be stored for a long time without adding anything to it.

According to the tribesmen, there could be several thousand catties of honey on that stone wall, and he only needs to take a few hundred catties; however, the specific operation still needs to be carefully studied.

Bees are different from other things; one or two are fine, and if you get stung, it just swells and hurts a bit. Given the physique of people nowadays, they might not even feel much.

But that beehive is densely packed with bees, and it is entirely possible to be stung to death on the spot, so a sufficiently sealed Bee-proof Clothing is necessary.

Moreover, the beehive is on a stone wall, so it is quite difficult to climb up; he can see if it is possible to hang down from above.

Baifeng felt it was necessary for him to go and study it in person, so he had the tribesmen lead the way to the location of the beehive.

Sure enough, Baifeng felt that whether by climbing with bare hands or setting up a ladder, the feasibility of reaching the beehive was not high. Building a ladder nearly twenty meters long seemed too difficult, and if one were careless and slipped, it would be lucky to even find a complete corpse.

Then they took a detour to the back to see if it was possible to hang someone down from above the stone wall. If that didn't work, they would have to try making a giant, triangular-structured ladder; how could he give up on the honey right before his eyes?

Looking from the front, it is a towering stone wall; looking from the back, it is a cliff. He dared not get too close to look down, as it would be bad if he provoked the swarm of bees.

However, looking from the top of the mountain, hanging someone down was perfectly fine. The ground in the entire area was very firm, with no risk of loosening or collapsing, and there were many trees that could provide anchor points.

Baifeng confirmed the surroundings and roughly formed a plan in his mind, then he took the people down, walked to the bottom of the stone wall again, roughly estimated the height of the stone wall, and headed back to prepare the tools.

First is the Bee-proof Clothing. The materials they have are cowhide and sheepskin. Since they cannot make it in one piece, they will make the pants, clothes, and gloves separately. Also, leather socks must be worn inside the shoes, and finally, all parts must be tied tightly with ropes; he does not believe any bee will be able to sting anyone.

The protection for the head is a bit troublesome. Whether it is a hood made of bamboo or Grass, it will affect walking and operation due to weight or shape. In the end, he chose to use cowhide, and as for the eye area, Baifeng has other plans.

After the tribesmen put on the Bee-proof Clothing, it was like wearing an inferior, oversized, and extra-fat version of a diving suit. It was very comical, but for now, there were no loopholes except for the eye area.

It was just heavy and hot; whoever wore it felt very uncomfortable. Moreover, it required too much leather, so the tribe finally squeezed out enough leather for four sets of Bee-proof Clothing.

Previously, the people from the Pottery Team had fumbled around and fired Glazed Glass. Baifeng gave them the general direction for firing Glass, letting them explore it themselves. So much time had passed that they could now fire out lumps of Glass, though the color was not pure and there were many bubbles.

Baifeng wanted them to use Glass to make Protective Glasses. Even if the color was not good and not pure enough, as long as one could see through them, it would suffice. After receiving the task, the people from the Pottery Team began to produce them earnestly.

They used to just try to fire Glass and never thought about making things with it. The lumps of Glass fired in the past were casually thrown on the side of the road, and anyone who liked them could pick them up at will.

They did not know how to make things with Glass; they were just potters. It was impossible to melt the Glass into mud and then shape it by hand; that was a bit too absurd, so they went to find the Blacksmith, thinking they had more experience.

Upon hearing this, the Blacksmith first asked what the characteristics of this thing called Glass were. Apart from being transparent and a bit brittle, the Blacksmith felt it didn't seem much different from Iron.

Both are fired from sand or stone, and they melt after being fired at high temperatures and set when cooled. So, the Blacksmith immediately patted his chest and said they had found the right person; they, the Blacksmiths, were the most experienced in dealing with such things.

Thus, they taught their blacksmithing techniques, such as how to hammer and how to quench. The Blacksmith felt that the brittleness of the Glass must be due to improper quenching, and taught them when it was most appropriate to quench. Under different red-hot conditions, the quenched results were vastly different.

The potters naturally trusted the Blacksmith's words immensely. They saw how attentive the Blacksmith was, teaching everything without hiding anything. So, after sincerely thanking them, they went to try it themselves, and before leaving, they borrowed various tools and anvils from the Blacksmith department.

Unexpectedly, when they took out the softened Glass and hammered it in a semi-solid state, it did not deform as expected but splashed everywhere, leaving the few of them at a loss.

They did not think there was a problem with the method, only that their technique was not skilled enough and they might have used too much force. So, they took out another piece of fired Glass and tapped it lightly. Sure enough, it could be deformed, so they hammered it gently, and it really worked.

The first time, they were not greedy and just made a flat Glass plate, intending to try quenching it. They found a bucket of water and plunged the reheated Glass plate into the water, thinking that at worst it wouldn't be quenched well, but they didn't expect the Glass plate to explode directly.

The people from the Pottery Team had never seen such a reaction. They didn't expect it to explode directly and felt they couldn't handle it, so they hurriedly went to invite the tribesmen from the Blacksmith department to support them and see what was going on.

The Blacksmith was also confused after hearing their account; it shouldn't be like this, even if the quenching wasn't successful, it shouldn't explode. So, the Blacksmith operated it once. Sure enough, they were skilled hands; even with Glass, they could adapt after a little while and hammered out the shape of Glass glasses, but it still exploded during quenching.

There was no other way, so the Blacksmith had to use the casting method. Anyway, Glass could also be melted into water, so they made a mold and poured the liquid Glass in to cool and set.

The result was that the object was made, but it was covered with too much sand and soil and was completely unusable. Even after polishing, it was still blurry. The protective effect could be achieved, but the tribesmen became half-blind after wearing them.

The Blacksmith was also helpless. After expressing that they were powerless, the potters went to find Baifeng to see if the Tribal Chief could give them some pointers.

But Baifeng only knew that Glass products were shaped or blown; he was not clear about the specific operation either, and the Artisan still had to explore it themselves. However, the step of quenching could be completely omitted.

The potters had no choice but to explore how to "shape Glass" themselves; in any case, they definitely couldn't shape it directly with their hands.

The worried group left Baifeng's residence. Unexpectedly, a tribesman who saw the blue-green transparent object they were holding, which was crafted into such a strange shape, curiously asked what they were going to do with it.