Medrawt Bees
"As he strode through that battlefield, between mountains of iron and flesh, felled in the rebellion, the sting of a sweet smell was the only thing that kept him moving. Perhaps a survivor was present, one of the maids in the garde manger, or a fine maiden at the end of the long road. He had not the mind to recognize that his side had stopped bleeding, and the buzzing that was rattling inside his bones."
The sands of Afallon can be treacherous and harsh places to live, especially the further out you get from the Oases or the settlements that've been made into safe harbors amidst the wastes. But like any biome life finds a way to thrive nonetheless, and among the strange creatures that've found their way to survival is the Medrawt Bees. One of few carnivorous bee species, the Medrawt Bees digest flesh and blood and make semi-fleshy hives from the resulting mass. Normally, they're scavengers, feasting upon recently dead and rotting animals, but there have been more than a few cases of a Medrawt Queen finding her way into a living yet wounded creature, animal or mortal alike.
Life & Castes
Despite seeming very eldritch compared to their common pollen and nectar feasting cousins, Medrawt Bees live very similarly to them. Their hives are primarily hosted by worker bees and drones, which serve their sole Queen. Some larger hives can have more than one queen, with the largest recorded hive having seven, but most are content with just the one. Larger hives can also have a wider range of bee subtypes, such as nurse bees and soldier bees, but the aforementioned three are the real building blocks of the group.
That being said, there is a unique type of bee to this species, and one that is necessary to the beginning of a new hive, and that is the Usurper or Invader bee. These bees are hatched alongside Drone bees and are near-identical during the pupal stages, but upon full growth are longer and have specialized mandibles compared to other drones. The purpose of usurper bees is to go out and either find more food if a hive is running low on their current body, or to find a new host for a hive all together. They typically venture out alone, and have keen senses to find any creatures with open wounds. Once they find a suitable source, they'll release a pheromone trail that other drones can follow, and trail the creature further. Once the scouting is done, the usurper bee will enter the wound when able, and begin to eat first any dead or scabbed matter, and then move on to living flesh. As they re-open the wound or make it wider, this will allow other bees, upon following the pheromone trail, to do the same, either harvesting the wound or carving their way into the body to create a new hive.
If just harvesting a new source of food, it will be done quickly and gluttonously, with the usurper bee taking the lions share and delivering it back to the Queen. If they are creating a new hive, the process will be much the same, however the gathered group will quickly build a space for their queen, and the usurper bee will liquefy its internal organs with the mass they absorbed to create the royal jelly for her.
As with standard bees, growth from egg to mature state takes roughly 3 weeks, in which the early larvae and pupae are fed the royal jelly and harvested honey. Worker Bees tend to live around that long, maybe extending into a few months. Drones on the other hand average around 3 months, and Usurpers can live around twice as long especially if they are primarily seeking new resources for the main hive. If they are finding a new hive, however, they'll live shorter lives as they sacrifice themselves for the queen, who in the right conditions can live for up to several years.
Hive Creation & Byproducts
Once a creature, living or dead, has become the host to a Medrawt Queen, they'll require immediate medical attention if they wish to live. The mandibles of Medrawt Bees secrete a toxin that is numbing and psychoactive, meaning that a living host will not be able to feel the parts that are being feasted upon, and under the psychoactive effects may imagine their wound miraculously healed. This period also tends to bring about heavy exhaustion and dehydration as their internal senses don't fire properly, and organs begin to fail after being feasted on.
Whether alive or rotten, the Medrawt Bees will digest and repurpose the flesh into their specific brand of dense, waxy meat and viscous iron-rich honey, using the skeletal structure as a base for their hive. Once they have eaten all, or enough, of the internal structure of a creature, they'll begin to form a thick waxy shell around the outside before devouring the outer layers of skin tissue, although with already decaying creatures they may just prioritize building along the skeletal structure and leave it at that.
While many see this act as grotesque, Medrawt bees are a valuable part of the desert ecosystem as they get rid of decaying bodies which could carry infection and do not leave potentially infected waste as a result. They are remarkably resistant to parasites as well, meaning that unlike other carrion species they do not pose the risk of passing along those parasites either in their own bodies or in the hives they create. Some people have even began carefully curating nests of Medrawt bees near rivers that lead into the deserts, to prevent decaying animals infecting the water supply. For people who work with animal bones, they are also capable of being very efficient cleaners, and if the right kind of bee is bred and maintained, they won't even leave the waxy residue on the bones themselves.
While the viscous meat honey is far less...shall we say, "aesthetically pleasing", it does provide a good resource for other carnivores in the wastes, and even if it's less than ideal can be a source of hydration for mortals too. The wax also has found recent medical use as a component for skin grafts, and a careful application of it can prevent bodies from rejecting new organs or prosthesis.
Social Response
Given the common view of bees as rather docile and gentle creatures that make delicious honey, the existence of carnivorous, dare I say murderous, meat making bees creates a rather stark dissonance, but has served as fertile ground for horror writers. This was also not helped by the case of the Weydcodi known as Qafīr, a necromancer of unknown origin who became a lich, even though their body had been harvested and turned into a hive by Medrawt Bees, and they eventually learned to use the hive within them as familiars and extensions of their own magic.
In recent years, entomologists and melittologists have been increasing public awareness about the benefits and risks alike, as despite the danger the species is essential to desert ecosystems.
Roughly 20 millimeters
Medrawt Bees have a dim yellow/green hue to them, which allows them to camouflage in the desert sands of Afallon as well as the sparse dry vegetation.
Discovery
The Desertfolk of Afallon have long known of the existence, and told the tales, of the Medrawt Bees, talking about them as defiled and cursed things, leaving behind nests of strange flesh over fallen bones. Many of those who lived away from the deserts thought of this as either an exaggeration or a cultural misconception, but in roughly 320 EE a group of Melittologists were directed to a large hive made in the carcass of a Desert Yak, and proper research began on this species. They have since been listed as a crucial piece of the desert ecosystem, but a potential hazard, and one of the things that all travelers are checked for when entering the cities or leaving the country.
Etymology
The name Medrawt is one from the unknown Ancient Kingdom, whose ruins have been found scattered throughout Afallon. While little is known for certain, it was the name of an antagonistic figure found in historical passages, an usurper to the throne that caused ruin and decay. Given these bees are known for invading hosts and taking over their flesh, many felt it was an apt name.
This is also the same figure the Medraut Islands are named for, but as the bees are not native to the islands, the spelling was made different to hopefully avoid confusion.
Behavior
While Medrawt Bees are carnivorous and do not make qualms over eating carcasses or making carcasses, they are not aggressive by nature. Rather, they are opportunist, and even if they find a living target they wish to infest, if they're attacked in the process they will in most cases leave and try elsewhere. Sometimes if swatted or aggravated they will bite, providing that same numbing sensation, but unless it is a bite to a wound it will not induce the psychoactive effects.
They are also not immensely territorial. While they'll fend off those trying to destroy or invade their hives, they will not sting those who are simply near the hive. Testing has shown the average acceptable distance from a docile hive is a minimum of three feet.
Oh this is horrifying it took me a minute because bees are such necessary creatures I at first thought nothing of what I was reading.....but like true terror, well crafted and well managed it crept up on me, the horror not fully being realized right away as I read on, intrigued and confused at first where you would make the link for the prompt. But then I doubled back, clarified what I'd read and that sometimes the hosts are STILL ALIVE! and my skin crawled. The noise that escaped my body was not one I'd ever heard before, and such a shudder left me that it felt as if it was down to my very bones. ALL of this is a compliment, do not even begin to consider apologizing, this is fantastic, this is what you want, if you are going to write such a concept you simply must commit. I thank you for the experience and most certainly am adding these majestic, eerie and wonderous creatures to my collection.
Thank you!!! I'm glad I illicited such a genuine response! I based these bad boys off of real life Vulture Bees, but those only eat dead meat, so I upped the threat/horror factor. I also finished reading The Starving Saints, a fantastic horror book with plenty of terrifying bee imagery, so that helped too!