At noon on Friday, after the alchemy class, after lunch, there were still five minutes before twelve o'clock, Zheng Qing came to the gate of Baicao Garden early, ready to volunteer for the last time this week.

The night patrol at Linzhong Lake lasted a total of five hours, evenly divided over three days, and almost an hour and a half per day.

Forty minutes at noon, forty minutes in the afternoon.

Originally, there were more than 40 minutes of labor this afternoon, but in order to avoid the need to recuperate after the practical class, Zheng Qing worked hard for a while yesterday afternoon, so after this labor at noon today, the replacement work of Saturday's night patrol was completely over.

Compared with the summer and autumn seasons, the large oak trees at the entrance of the garden have become much more depressed, the oak leaves have dimmed, and the two-tailed squirrels that wander among the branches are gone.

Zheng Qing craned his neck to look for a long time, but he never saw those lively little guys. He had prepared a handful of peanuts and planned to supplement them.

"That's how kind-hearted I am. The wizard thought of the first time he came to the Baicao Garden and was smashed on the head by a squirrel with a nut, and couldn't help but sigh that he felt good: "This is the legendary revenge with virtue..."

Just after 12 o'clock, the 'temporary school workers' who came to work arrived one after another.

The leader, naturally, was Stendhal, the person in charge of the Baicao Garden, and to Zheng Qing's surprise, Mr. Li Qihuang, a professor of Potions, also appeared at the gate of the garden. As for the other people at the scene, they all looked a little familiar, but Zheng Qing couldn't name most of them, and he should also be a student of Jiuyou Academy.

However, those students clearly recognized Zheng Qing's identity, exchanged heads and whispered to each other, nodding at Zheng Qing from time to time, showing curious eyes and kind smiles. As if to encourage him silently.

Zheng Qing would rather they pat him on the shoulder vigorously and greet him with a big grin.

In the face of this somewhat embarrassing atmosphere, he changed into dragon skin overalls, put on deerskin gloves, and slowly moved to Professor Li and Old Man Stendhal, waiting for orders.

"Everyone should know what we are doing today. ”

After everyone gathered, after the old man Stendhal took the roll call, he began to preach in advance: "I have all taken a pharmacy class and entered the herb garden. I won't say much about the precautions. ”

"Two tasks. ”

"First, manual pollination, helping a few herbs in the garden to do the pollination work. Because there have been a lot of bees that have disappeared recently, and many herbs are almost past their flowering date, the second is to track the bees in the garden to see where they have disappeared. ”

"Students in charge of manual pollination, be careful not to be frightened by the passing earth dragon or the running rabbit, there are no wild demons in the garden, they are all herbs, and the most dangerous ones are just a few big-mouthed grunts, which are all encircled in the glass room, so don't scare yourself and trample my herbs. ”

Hearing this slightly ridiculous warning, the students let out a low laugh.

"Besides, if you find thorns on the ridges of the fields, don't doubt that they are all weeds, and you can't be wrong with them. ”

The first time Zheng Qing entered the Baicao Garden was to clean up the taste thorns, but he didn't expect that after so long, he would still do this kind of thing. Sure enough, there is nothing new under the sun, and most of the weekdays in the herb garden are this kind of repetitive work.

Old Man Stendhal went on to command:

"The students who are in charge of tracking the bees, pay attention to the direction in which they eventually disappear. The hive also remembered to look through it, and although the previous spot check did not find a large area of death, it did not completely rule out this possibility. ”

"There are 10 colonies in total, belonging to different categories. Each of you is only responsible for the investigation of one colony. The specific content will be arranged by Professor Li later...... Do you have any questions?"

Everyone shook their heads in unison.

The old man glanced back at Professor Li.

Professor Li nodded, flipped through the notepad in his hand, and began to assign tasks by name.

Fortunately, this time Zheng Qing didn't need to think about damaging flowers and plants during pollination, or scratching his fingers when cleaning up thorns. He was assigned a mission by the professor to investigate the disappearance of bees.

"Before you assign a task, you need to get a specific understanding of the situation. ”

Professor Li took everyone to a bee colony, opened a beehive, and the milky white eggs, fat queen bees, and wriggling young bees in the hive were all in their nests.

However, Zheng Qing keenly found that in such a large bee colony tribe, only a few worker bees were working hard to collect honey, and according to their capabilities, they could not meet the needs of the entire bee colony.

"As you can see, most of the worker bees in this colony have disappeared. It's anomalous. ”

Professor Li's voice was always so light and fluttering, and Zheng Qing tried to discern every word he said: "Under normal circumstances, worker bees are born, grow and die in Si. They are born and raised in beehives, collect honey from the flowers around the hives, and sleep in the cemetery behind the hives – the dead worker bees are carried to the bees' graveyards by their companions. ”

"But as in the case of this hive, most of the worker bees go out to collect honey and never return. ”

"There is no return to the beehive. There is no long rest in the cemetery. Even in the nearby flower source, there are no signs of a large number of bee deaths. ”

"It's unusual. Professor Li sighed and shook his head.

"Could it be some dying disease?" a tall and thin boy asked, propping up his glasses, "For example, acute paralysis of Mediterranean bee colonies, this disease has a high degree of rapid spread and high incidence, and the bee colonies infected with this disease will lose their judgment of direction and eventually get lost in the wild. ”

"Very sharp. Professor Li nodded appreciatively, but then denied it: "The health of the bee colony is monitored in real time by multiple magic rune arrays, and any sick bees will be detected immediately. Because the likelihood of a large-scale epidemic is extremely low. We have repeatedly sorted out these diseases, including acute paralysis of Mediterranean bee colonies, Assam bee virus, and nectar spores of rejuvenating poplars, and we have not found similar cases. ”

"So these bees were eaten by youkai?" said a little fat man grinning and poking at the wriggling larvae in the beehive.

"That means you didn't pay attention to the lecture just now. Professor Li glanced at him and said slowly, "Uncle Stendhal mentioned before that there is nothing more dangerous in the garden than a big-mouthed grunt...... You can rest assured of that. ”

The little fat man grinned, put his hands behind his back, and honestly stopped talking.

Professor Li turned his attention to the other students:

"In fact, based on what we know now, it is highly likely that the disappearance of these bees is part of a series of cases of ecological imbalance in Phuket...... Including the silent return at the end of last year, the rat plague, and this year's insect plague, the infestation of frogs, and so on. ”

"You just need to keep a detailed record of what you have investigated, and the rest will be handled by more professional people. ”

"Before tracking the swarm, I need to emphasize discipline to you again: first, listen to the teacher's instructions, second, don't move, and third, listen to the teacher's instructions and don't move!"

"Let's get moving!"

Three heads