In parallel with the road-building, some heavy furnace-working was going on, too.
At Researchina's request, a half of our forges were temporarily given to Researcher Bees. It didn't harm production much, since by now we were low on metal to be forged.
Instead, fresh clay was brought over.
Since mortar wasn't a thing yet, our furnaces and kilns were all made from raw clay, or from bricks put together with clay. Heat made the clay dry, and if a (fragile, primitive) furnace broke, it can be easily fixed with more clay.
Now, in dozens of forges, hundreds of Craftsmen Bees (also requested by Researchina) were making new furnaces next to the old ones, while Researcher Bees nearby told them what exactly to do and wrote down the results.
And each of these furnaces was different from all others. There were different shapes, different approaches to smelting—each of which could work in theory, and thus, could only be tested in practice.
