After eating the berries, the bugs spat out the seeds. Some worker drones gathered these and ported them a short ways outside the main hive before dropping them onto the ground, and after continuing this for a long enough time, we managed to get a patch of sprouts to emerge. There are green bushes poking out of the grass, but so far they have yet to bear much fruit.
As the new generation came of age and grew to their adult sizes, the Hive became very crowded with the presence of no less than a thousand of our species. So it was split up, with hundreds of drones as well as a new queen establishing a satellite hive on the other end of the tunnel to the forest, further cementing control over the berry bushes and allowing for the Hivemind to project more of its power into that region. Using the new hive as a base of operations, more troops of bugs were sent out to scout the forest.
The Hivemind was conflicted and so the warriors have not yet agitated or attempted to capture the bees, but they did note the creatures' presence and report back the exact location of three beehives. There was of course the one that the Hive had previously seen and long known about, up in a tree near the forest's border, but the drones also found another two beehives deeper into the forest. It's unclear if the three beehives are independent or if they work together as our Hivemind, but in either case, it would be easy enough to send warrior drones up a tree to storm one of the hives using the element of surprise; the bees have never really paid attention to us or seen us as a threat, after all. Of course, one expects that there would still be quite a few casualties when attacking a beehive.
Scouting troops also managed to figure out where all these beetles are coming from--deeper into the forest is a huge fallen log covered with fungi, and next to it is a pile of fallen leaves and sticks. The beetles swarm out from burrows under the log and the leaves. It's impossible to get an accurate count, but there could easily be 300 of them in that nest and the surrounding area. This information didn't come freely though. Despite trying not to engage, several small scouting groups were attacked by the beetles, and some were wiped out altogether. It seems that those bugs have grown quite intolerant of us, and any presence in their territory is met with immediate aggression. Skirmishes along our border are somewhat rare, though. The beetles still keep to their side of the forest. It seems as though they've wisely ceded the berry bushes to us, and all the beetles that we see skulking around the edges of our territory are more akin to border guards than some raiding force.
Directed by the Hivemind's will, the warriors have develop larger mandibles with more crushing force. They still retain the paralytic venom, which has been useful against larger foes like spiders and snakes. We've long since rooted out the population of spiders and snakes that resided within the vicinity of the berry bush and our forest nest (and the spoils of that were spidersilk, snakeskin, meat for it, and knowledge of their various traits), but occasionally some of them still wonder in from outside and need to be dealt with.
