After dinner, the hunters gathered to prepare for the bee-catching operation, while the women and children had to stay inside the tent and were not allowed to go outside.
Quickly, everyone arrived at the bee hive.
At night, the hive was extremely quiet. Minh Vu passed the torch close to the hive once again, using smoke to confirm whether the primitive bees were afraid of smoke or not.
Indeed, smoke was the enemy of bees. Just a whiff of smoke made the bees move away, revealing the shiny honeycomb full of honey.
Seeing the gleaming honey, Minh Vu couldn't help but think about having a hot drink with honey tonight.
He realized it had been a long time since he had eaten any sugar, not even fruit, let alone sugar or honey.
"Quick, start the fire!" Minh Vu immediately pointed below the hive, signaling everyone to start gathering firewood.
In less than 5 minutes, a fire was gradually formed, but Minh Vu didn't let the fire burn strongly.
Instead, he put fresh leaves directly into it, immediately producing a column of black smoke that billowed towards the hive.
At this point, the hive became agitated. The worker bees continued to pour out of the hive, behaving like crazed warriors rushing into the fire, seemingly willing to sacrifice themselves to extinguish the flames and protect the hive and queen bee.
Minh Vu also anticipated potential trouble, so after lighting the smoke, he arranged two large fires around to attract the worker bees, while he and the hunters quickly retreated about 30 meters to observe the situation.
The worker bees rushed out, creating buzzing sounds, extremely terrifying. The Orcs and Klus couldn't help but tremble with fear. This was the first time in their lives they had seen such a terrifying scene.
Hundreds of thousands of bees flew out of the hive, darkening the sky. If they were stung by those bees, they would surely die.
At this moment, they were extremely impressed by their young leader.
After about 10 minutes of turmoil, the bees calmed down completely.
It wasn't that they had adapted, but they lay lifeless on the ground. The smoke indeed had a significant effect on them.
Only then did Minh Vu slowly approach. He didn't rush because this was his first time catching bees in the primitive era.
If it were in the present time, he would have caught them directly without this trial and error process.
Counting the range of the fire, Minh Vu found over 50,000 dead worker bees lying on the ground.
The fire under the hive was still burning brightly, revealing the true form of the hive.
On top of the hive, there were only a hundred or so bees hiding in the corners.
This hive was nearly 1 meter long, divided into two main sections: the honeycomb and the brood. The brood section was very small, about 20 cm long. The rest was shiny golden honey.
"Quick, get the skins!" Minh Vu ordered.
Of course, Orc was the most loyal one. He quickly brought the largest animal skin to Minh Vu.
Minh Vu carefully used a bone knife to cut the honeycomb into pieces, putting each piece into the animal skin bag. The golden honey flowed down, and he couldn't help but lick it off the bone knife, enjoying the sweet taste filling his mouth.
"Delicious!" Minh Vu whispered.
Hearing that it was delicious, Orc rushed over first.
Minh Vu generously cut him a big piece of honey with his thumb.
After that, the other members also received pieces of honeycomb.
It was a new and delightful sensation that made them forget their previous fear and replaced it with enthusiastic gazes at the hive.
Minh Vu quickly processed the hive himself. Four large animal skin bags were filled with honeycomb, and with this yield, Minh Vu estimated he could harvest about 6 liters of honey and 2 kilograms of brood.
The brood was extremely nutritious. Although the queen bee didn't reproduce in winter, these young bees were born at the end of autumn, so there were still quite a few young bees.
About an hour later, the hunters returned to the camp with a great harvest.
They carefully packed the honey, and only then did Minh Vu allow everyone to rest and prepare for the journey tomorrow. If it snowed heavily again tomorrow, he might have to stay longer. Moving in heavy snow was truly a deadly path.
It was a peaceful night, as if the heavens had heard Minh Vu's prayers. Today the weather was beautiful.
Since morning, the sun had risen, and there was no more snowfall.
Minh Vu immediately packed up the camp and hurried back to the tribe. They had been away from the tribe for more than 5 days, and he was quite worried.
Today, everyone enjoyed a delicious meal again.
It was porridge with added honey, making the dish even more flavorful. Orc was the strongest eater among them.
Because yesterday's harvest was quite good, everyone had a hearty meal this morning, especially the new members. After a few days of having enough food, their physical condition and health improved significantly.
Quickly, everyone returned to the tribe. After half a day's journey, they returned to the tribe.
Now the Big Stone tribe's camp was covered in white snow, and the grassland was blanketed with snow, knee-deep. Moving was extremely difficult.
From the top of the big stone, Old Xin was looking into the distance, seeming tired. When he saw the people approaching from afar, he couldn't help but shout.
"The leader is back! The leader is back!"
Immediately, the tribe burst into cheers, with over 60 remaining members stopping all their work and running out to welcome Minh Vu's group. This showed Minh Vu's importance in the tribe.
With everyone's help, Minh Vu's group quickly crossed the snowy field and returned to the stone cave.
More than a hundred people gathered in the cave, a bit cramped and stuffy, but the atmosphere was very cheerful.
Vu began to confirm the traded items, and this time the tribe harvested a lot. More than half were new foods, which made all the tribespeople curious. Honey and young bees.
The old man was truly surprised. This year, the tribe had exchanged so much, not only bringing back many animal skins but also gaining many new members.
In a short time, the Big Stone tribe had developed significantly, no longer worrying about food, and even the salt was abundant and of better quality than that of the Rock tribe.
For Vu, this was more than enough, but for Minh Vu, it was dark. He knew that during the recent trading fair, the tribe had revealed many things that should not have been revealed. They were likely to be spied on by other tribes, especially the Fang tribe, which had shown unusual friendliness. The Rock tribe was probably forming a conspiracy as well. The sign was the unusual friendliness of those tribes.
The first thing the tribe needed to do now was to strengthen itself and increase its combat strength. However, the number of capable fighters was less than 15, with only 13 hunters, plus women, elders, and children.
Currently, the tribe needed to urgently build a defensive wall. The next step was to train those hunters into real warriors. These were the two urgent tasks at hand.
However, at this moment of celebration, welcoming back the heroes of the tribe, Minh Vu also had to deal with the honey harvested.
He directly handed the young bees to the women, who took them out of the hive to prepare for dinner, while Minh Vu personally instructed on how to handle the honey.
Because the hive was wrapped in animal skins and the weather was cold, there was minimal loss of honey.
Minh Vu directly put the honey into ceramic jars, covered them with animal skins, and even placed the honey jars in a pot, then added water to prevent ants from eating all the honey.
After handling that, he didn't rest but immediately arranged tasks for the next few days.
During these days, while he was away, the tribe continued to collect wood, tree branches, and stones to make ropes, with the main purpose being to build houses. This was something all the tribe members desired, so there was quite a lot of material.
However, mud was not collected because the stream was frozen, and the water was very cold, making it difficult to collect mud.
The pottery kiln had also stopped operating for two main reasons: first, there were no good materials to make pottery, and second, the temperature difference was too high, causing the pottery to crack before being fired.
Currently, he was beginning to form a system for defensive walls. Something that no one in this era could think of.
If they were to build a traditional defensive wall around the tribe, it would take at least 3 or 4 months, but with Minh Vu's method, it was estimated to be completed within a week.