Those drones that ventured off into the grasslands never do return. They were expendable and so not terribly missed, but their disappearance was still foreboding enough that no further expeditions were sent in that direction.

The Hivemind dispatched a sizable troop into the forest. Usually the drones didn't go much farther than the outskirts (or fell prey to snakes, birds, or any other manner of terrors if they did) but that was when they went alone and had no warriors to protect them. This time, the troop ranged deeper into the forest than the Hive had ever dared to go before. Along the way, they were attacked by a giant spider, but through the use of sheer numbers and a newly evolved paralytic venom inside the warriors' mandibles, they were able to slay it with only a few casualties taken. Bees buzzed obliviously overhead as the spider was dismembered and sent back to the Hive in pieces to serve as food. Waste not, want not.

After that was sorted, the troop pressed on and they found a great thicket filled with berry bushes. There was immediately a skirmish between the troop and several beetles that had been inhabiting the area. Despite the beetles having a nasty bite of their own and being like tanks with shells too thick to be pierced by the warriors' mandibles, they were defeated. The beetles simply were not as numerous or coordinated as our species and so they were easily pinned down and rendered helpless while their legs were bitten off.

Some of the beetles scurried off and retreated deeper into the forest. Instead of pursuing, the troop of drones began gathering huge quantities of berries and carrying them back to the Hive. More expeditions followed, made easier by a winding tunnel that was eventually dug from the nest all the way to the edge of the forest. More beetles were seen skulking around in the following days, and though they've been driven away from the berry bushes, they probably have a nest somewhere and the Hivemind can only wonder at what other resources they might still control.

With the berry bushes now solidly inside the Hive's territory, the food supply has massively increased. Things got frisky back at the Hive, and the Queen spawned an unprecedented horde of larvae. There are currently only about 250 drones and one queen, but there's about to be a population boom of hundreds when the new generation grows. This opens up the possibility of establishing more Hives, or perhaps even launching a full invasion into the forest or somewhere else.

[hider=The Land][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/301503609995264002/641782557024976938/Capture.PNG[/img][/hider]