Tumblebee

Tumblebees are a form of domesticated insect within Castrella which are kept on ranches for their honey and seasonally shorn for their downy fuzz. They resemble terrestrial bumblebees of great size, with select breeds reaching the size of a horse in bulk, and have a chitinous exoskeleton covered in a pelt of fuzzy hair. Adult workers are capable of carrying a child or modestly sized adult on their back, and - properly supervised - tumblebee rides are a staple of fairs and country life.

A feral form with tusks exists in the wild, and poorly kept tumblebees are known to leave inept ranchers, revert to a feral state, and become a menace in local communities by nesting near food sources and aggressively staking them out as territory. Tumblebee queens form hives of dozens of workers, spawning drones and virgin queens annually to expand and maintain the hive. Like normal bumblebees, their stinger is barbless and can be used multiple times per individual, but is closer to a rapier in size and bears a neurotoxic venom.

Their main natural source of food is the nectar of several species of megaflora native to the forests of Castrella, especially sylvan hyperflowers belonging to the Chamillus, Yunexus, Maianus, and Kirbaus genera. Like tumblebees themselves, ranchers have taken to raising and tending fields of these hyperflowers to support their flocks, although 'wild forage' tumblebee honey is still debated to be superior by culinarians and gourmets. However, they are opportunistic and will pursue any easy source of sugars, and nurseries, orchards, fruit farms, malt houses, confectionaries, and other such repositories view tumblebees - even docile domesticated ones - as pests.

This nectar (and other sugars) is processed into honey by the workers and stored within the hive, and thanks to guild research, a suitable construct plan has been developed that tumblebee colonies will use that allows for harvesting of this honey, which can be used in the same way as honey from smaller beekeeping operations. Tumblebees have also been bred to grow their fuzzy hair to a sufficient length that it can be shorn from them and processed into textiles like wool, producing a soft and elegant fabric. However, because of their size and their capacity for flight, an inexpertly handled tumblebee is liable to take to the sky instead of endure discomfort, and an inexperienced farmhand (typically a teen) can be carried into the air with them. This can lead to any difficult task requiring finesse or expertise being compared to 'shearing tumblebees'.

Certain researchers within the Environmental Division continue to insist, all evidence to the contrary, that tumblebees should be incapable of flight. Typically these researchers are too fixated on mathematical and physical models developed in-house; the generally accepted answer is to take them to a tumblebee ranch to see for themselves, and coincidentally to touch some grass at the same time.