The Mechanics of Beekeeping (Theory-crafting how it would actually work)

[Battlepaw 585]

The Theorycraft of Beekeeping

(disclaimer:  wall of text incoming... you've been warned  )

 

 

Introduction, or why I'm writing this huge wall of text

 

A lot of players want beekeeping, but most of them don't start talking about how the mechanics of the thing would be implemented.    That is what I want to discuss in this post.  I think In my last Beekeeping topic I came pretty close on how keeping an apiary would actually function.  This time I'm going all out on the theory-crafting of beekeeping.  

 

What I'm going for here is perfecting the mechanics.   This isn't a post on what to do with bee products, and keep in mind that I do not own any hives.   What I do know is found from research on the net, watching videos, and being originally inspired by watching one of my buddies work with his bees.   So I'm not perfect.  Correct me if you guy feel I left out some important details.   Everything is written in this post from the perspective as if it's being described as already existing.  This is to put it in context.   If you mange to last through reading all of this huge wall of text and explanation on how I think beekeeping should be added please comment.  I put a lot of work into this idea, and I think it's the best explanation and theory to date on how to implement the feature.  Hopefully it can help serve as a guide to the developers on suggestions towards getting this feature actually in the game.   

 

 

How the hives work In-game

 

There are three kinds of hives, first the swarm, then the wild beehive, then an Apiary.   

 

Swarm:  A swarm is a container object with a model of a huge swarm of bees, these are found on trees 1-5 wurm days after created and can be found on trees, or the house walls of players.   These do not damage players, unless the player is on the tile and not wearing bee protection.    Inside the swarm are two objects, first the queen.  If it's a swarm from a nearby failed apiary, or a nearby apiary split on it's own the queen will eiter be labeled "Wild Queen" or it will be named according to it's traits, and genealogy if it's the result of an apiary.   The second is an object that says "bees"  when examined it will say the an amount.   "A few bees" =under 1000   "A lot of bees"  1000-2000"  "A great many bees"  2000-5000"   "A multitude of bees"  5000+   The amount of damage is metted for not wearing bee clothing is dependent on the number of bees.  The object also weighs more, the more bees there are.   A player on the path of knowledge in meditation can quantify the bees exact number.   

 

Wild Beehive:  After 5 wurm days of being in one spot, a swarm will become a behive object.   Beehive objects will damage a player not protected by bee clothing up to 2 tiles away.    The damage will depend on the on how many bees are in the hive, the health of the hive the radius.    Inside a wild beehive you have several objects.  

 

First, depending on the state of the hive you will have honeycombs.   Upon examining these it will tell you how many are filled with young bees, if the queen is doing well, there will be many honeycombs filled with bees. You can break down the honeycombs in a fruit press for honey, but a new hive will require enough combs to survive, as bees need both their young, and honey to survive.   

 

 Inside these hives there are be three types of bees.   Nurse bees, Guard bees, and Gatherer Bees.   There will also be a queen by default, and that will be the same queen that was present from the swarm.   Beeswax can spawn in a wild beehive, or can be obtained by breaking down a honeycomb in a fruit press.  You need that for building an apiary.  

 

Apiary:  

 

Inside an Apiary, you have frames.    The frames can be broken down for honeycombs, that are used in fruit presses you also have the Queen, and the Nurse bees, Guard bees, and Gather bees, and Drone bees.   

 

 

How the mechanics work for obtaining a swarm or moving a wild hive into an Apiary.   

 

Ok to get your own Apiary started first you need to build one.  They are rather simple to build plank+nail gives you the option to build one, and they take 25 planks, 5 small nails, and 4 shafts, and they require 40 carpentry.    

 

The frames are built with small nail +plank, and are built with wires, 4 planks, and beeswax.    You can put honeycombs inside your apiary but they don't work as well towards the health of your hive, but can a minimal alternative if you don't have beeswax yet.    When you first start an apiary you don't need to seal it up with beeswax, but once you get some you can and, its like tar, you only need to use it once and it seals the box against elements.  The apiary still takes decay damage, but that damage doesn't affect the bees, unless the apiary decays away, at which time the bees will swarm.    

 

Frames can be broken down for multiple honeycombs, depending on the weight of the frame, and how many combs are on it.  you can only harvest royal jelly from frames, and if you have 30+ apiary skill.    This allows you to create new queens in a colony and split it.  

 

Once you have built an apiary, you hold it in your inventory, and find a wild swarm or beehive.    You open the container and drag the contents into the apiary.    Until you plant the apiary, the bees inside will take damage.  Once they start taking damage a queen may sicken and die, and each kind of bees, or the general bee object in the swarm will start to lose bees.     You need to quickly get to where you need to go and plant the apiary.     

 

How to manage a planted Apiary.   

 

If you haven't built bee clothing by now, you have probably gone through a lot of cotton.    You should consider making bee protective clothing.   Cloth is the most basic.   Normal cloth armor and a cloth beekeeper mask will fully protect you from bees, but it will quickly take damage as you spend time around your hive while the bees are restless.    You can craft beekeeper gear using your bee products.  You use beeswax on your cloth armor to give it better protection from bees, it will take less damage.  You can also build a beekeeper's helmet out of reeds, cloth, and beeswax that is more resistant to bee damage.     

 

Once you have planted your apiary, it can be managed by the permissions you set for village, if players can tend them, access them, etc.   Where you place one is very important, you typically want to put apiary's art least one tile away from each other, and surrounded by flowers, bush tiles, etc.   Flowerbeds also work.  Anything a bee can use as a source of pollen that it will convert into honey.   

 

Honey, is like the fuel of a beehive, you don't want to take too much of it out in the forms of loaded honeycombs on your frames.  If you do you can cause your hive to sicken and, eventually it will desert you in the form of a swarm or in a worst case, die off.  You make sugar out of honey, and add water to it, to make sugar water.  That can also be placed near beehives in containers to help nurse a hive's combs on the frames back up during the winter.   You can also make sugar by boiling strawberry jam.   

 

During the winter months, the bees will consume their own honey to survive.  When starting a new colony during the winter you need to use sugar water to help the bees get enough fuel to stay alive, as they won't have much starting resources, especially if they only have a few honeycombs to work with.    A colony may die off or swarm if it runs out of honey.   

 

To work with a planted apiary you approach the hive (hopefully properly suited up) the guard bees will start bouncing off of you in warning at first, then once you stay too long, or interact with the apiary they will start damaging your bee protection, then you if you lose a piece of your armor to damage.   There are three states of a hive "Passive, Agitated, and Enraged"   The longer you spend there working on the Apiary, the more agitated the bees will get.  The more agitated, the faster they will damage your clothing.   You can pacify them by using a smoker.    A smoker is created with blacksmithing using a metal lump on a large anvil, and is filled with kindling.    Once lit, you can use it on a hive, and doing so will use up weight of kindling in the smoker.    Once it's used up the smoker will snuff out and you will have to reload it and light it again.    

 

You can do a "Tend" option while you are within one tile of your apiary.   This is a long timer, depending on what condition a hive is in.  There are three levels of conditions.  If the hive is very out of sorts, and needs lots of work the timer may take as long as 5 minutes.    The three levels are "Well tended"  "Slightly Disheveled" "Unkempt"    If an apiary is left at "Unkempt" for too long it may swarm.   Unkempt may take as long as a wurm week to appear, but can be sped up if the bee population is starting to die off.    

 

Also the Apiary itself will take damage, and faster if it isn't sealed with wax.    Every once in a while you will need to go out there and improve the QL of the apiary, using carpentry tools and repair the damage.  The higher QL of apiary, the slower the state of the hive will decay into Unkempt, and it will also take damage slower.   

 

You get Apiary skill by tending, or working on the hive, doing actions such as harvesting royal jelly, trying to create queens, etc.     Its like farming though, and the majority of your skillgain will be from the tending itself.    

 

You also get skill for breaking down the combs in a fruit press, the amount of your Apiary skill will determine the QL of the stuff you get.   

 

Splitting Hives and Breeding Queens.    

 

You split a hive by creating a queen inside the hive and removing it before it can be killed by the existing queen.    To do this you first need to obtain royal jelly from one of your frames.    You inspect a frame first to see if it has any, then you harvest the royal jelly if it has it, you can't remove a frame and harvest the jelly, it has to be inside the hive.    Once you have a frame with the jelly, you add some of it to one of the frames and it will give you a message like "You were successful, a queen will appear soon"  To be successfully at this you need drones, and a queen existing in the hive already.   

 

The drones and the queen are what you want to work with for the traits, also the bees within the hive will also have the trait, however those are just the result of the queen's traits.  What is important is the queen itself and the drones.  If there are no drones in a apiary, they will eventually spawn if the apiary has an existing healthy queen, and will mate with the queen. This lets you breed traits into a new queen.  You can take a queen from one colony and put it in another that does not have a queen, and try to get traits from the queen you put into it, on the drones.  The drones can't be moved between hives.    Eventually you can also create a queen in a hive and either split the hive or sell off the queen to another player who wants the traits from that queen.    

 

Sounds complicated?  Heh you should see how it actually works in real life, its much more complex.   You can examine drones, or the queen and see the traits.    Depending on the traits of the queen, can affect the output, aggressiveness, and hardiness bred into a colony.    You can also look at the traits of workers, nurse bees, etc, and each can get their own type of traits depending on how you hybridize a colony.   You can't move bees out of an apiary. So your stuck with what you go.     You can move the entire apiary itself, and plant it somewhere else, but like when you first get the thing created, the bees will quickly sicken and die if you don't plant it quickly.   

 

There are different traits you can breed into a queen that will eventually affect the colony.  You move a queen by making a small beebox with a plank and small nail, you activate the beebox and right click on the Apiary or Wild Beehive, it harvest the queen.  The queen takes damage slowly in the beebox, then dies if not introduced into a new colony after too long.    

 

Good Traits:   

 

Hardy-  Colony degrades slower.  This is measured in three levels.  Moderately Hardy, Very Hardy, and Exceptionally Hardy  

Strong- bees harvest pollen faster and convert it into honey. They also can harvest sugar water faster with this trait.   

Resistant- Resists diseases

Passive-  Bees do less damage to your bee armor, and take longer to get enraged.    Has three levels.   Somewhat passive, Very passive, and Exceptionally Passive.   

 

Bad Traits:

Sickly-  Colony degrades faster.  Has three levels, Slightly Sickly, Somewhat Sickly, and Very Sickly.  

Fierce-  Bees are more aggressive, and do more damage when agrivated.   Has three levels.  Somewhat fierce, Very Fierce, and Exceptionally Fierce.  

Weak-  Bees harvest slower

Vunerable-  Bess have a higher chance at getting diseased.    

 

Closeing thoughts:

 

This isn't the only way this can be done, and bear in mind I've put this idea in a form that Wurm might actually be able to handle.   This really doesn't come close to how beekeeping actually works in IRL.   Its just the best I can think of for getting it to translate into something we can use in Wurm.  There are lots of things we could use the different products for, Wax could be used in candles, building, salves, etc.  Honey as a base for food, sugar, salves, etc .  Royal jelly, for potions, salves, etc.  

 

Lots of ways to use the products, but this post is about the mechanics of bees.    Feel free to add anything you would feel can help this concept be implemented.    I think this post is very important to help the developers get a feel for how this feature can actually be implemented and how interesting this would actually be able to be used.   

 

There are also lot of ways you could also use the bees in PvP, if you breed bees with the fierce traits, you could put them outside your deed to help protect them from enemies, that need to wear armor that isn't bee-proof like Pate, Chain, Leather, Scale, Drake hide, etc.    To fight this practice, enemies  can damage apiary with catapults from a distance to try to take out aggressive colonies though.   You can also use a smoker on enemy beehives, or a burst "bee-bomb"  on the ground to calm the bees, so you can pass safely. I had ideas a while ago about launching beehives at enemies, would be interesting if you could make bee bombs as I mentioned earlier by building a small container, and filling it with guard bees or something, and launching that.  When it lands it creates a small cloud of enraged bees.        

 

There is a lot to this mechanic, and it has a ton of potential at making our gameplay in wurm very fun, and interesting.    Beekeeping is something I feel that many people should learn how to do, or get interested int, as these little cridders are essential for survival of life on earth.   They are a part of our everyday lives, and are responsible for the successful growing of most of the plant-derived food we eat every day.   They are truly amazing insects, and deserve a place in any survival MMO, especially one like wurm where detail is everything and we live in a player created, immersive world.   

Edited June 23, 2014 by Battlepaw

[Miniroll 544]

[Battlepaw 585]

Open to some suggestions on splitting the colonies,  and anything else anyone can think of.  Its just an outline atm, though thinking that if a colony gets too big, it may split by itself and spawn a swarm nearby with it's own queen, need to read up on what actually happens to a colony when this happens. Anyways I think I'm missing ways to create queen-less colonies if anyone has suggestions.    

[Teksan 22]

Whewie!  You've put a lot of work and thought into this.  Well done.

 

Quick note, boiling strawberry jam into sugar as something useful I like a lot.  Anything that makes the stuff we cook more worthwhile.

 

Skill levels:

1. A bit turned off at the idea of an apiary requiring 40 carpentry to build.  Why so high?  May not seem that high and maybe once a proper house is built, someone gets there with ease, but only having 20 carp right now I have to wonder why building an apiary needs to be this exclusive.  I could see 21 to ensure the need for premium, but a rudimentary low QL apiary should be attainable early.
   
2. On the other hand, kinda feels like 30 Apiary skill for royal jelly needed for breeding a new queen is too low.  A lot of the preferable priest things are at a skill of 70 aren't they?  I could see a need for 70 apiary skill to breed new queens.  Seems high, but there are always options of buying a queen or using wild ones.  Being able to breed queens and play with their traits seem like it should be a great thing to strive for, an end-goal that not everyone will want to reach.  Those really into it get the benefit of creating great queens not only for profit, but because they're passionate about their skill.
   
3. Tailoring... it's a skill that feels a bit unloved to me.  Cloth armor seems primarily for vanity so this could be a great way to bring cloth tailoring a bit of glory?  I'd require maybe something like 40 cloth tailoring to make the bee armor.  In the meantime, people can get by suffering stings or buy themselves a nice suit of bee armor. ::Edit:: is 40 even considered high?
   

PvP:

   I'm not a pvp'er so take this with a grain of salt and don't beat me up.  Should plate armor be particularly vulnerable to bees?  I like the idea of using bees as a way to counteract plate armor as I'd imagine having a bee trapped in there with me would be pretty bad, and there's plenty of holes for them to climb in.

   Conversely, leather armor would stand up to bees better than plate in battle as there aren't many points of entry.  Might bring some variety to armor types used and strategies for assault?  Just a thought, again, I don't pvp in Wurm.

 

Healing:

   Bruises can be healed with cotton, but one can also use farmer's salve (I think that's what it's called).

   Along the same lines, how should we deal with bee stings?  A healing cover with particular ingredients to counteract the effects?  Camelia or rosemary or whatever.  Just might be interesting to tie in that skill as well.  I do like camelia just because it can be grown and harvested with this particular market in mind.

 

I generally really like complexity and detail.  You've certainly managed to bring both 

 

However, I do wonder if it might be slightly too much?

1. Just curious if anyone can list other mechanics that are this thorough?  For instance, breeding horses seems far less complicated.  Same with farming.  I would rather see bee-keeping become the new bar other skills are raised to, but just wonder if it is currently in keeping with the norm.
   
2. As I was reading the initial paragraphs of something within something within something else, and only ever being an amateur coder, I was left thinking "wow, that's a lot of objects."  I'll let the pros chime in on whether or not this would be an issue from a database/server/programming standpoint but that's one thing that came to mind.
   

Lastly, I do like the effect of winter on apiaries as you've suggested.  However, I'm also trying to think in comparison to other skills and something like farming doesn't seem affected by winter at all (I would love to see that happen though).  Same with gardening skills, I can pick flowers without problems in winter.  With that in mind I wonder if beekeeping should be affected by winter.

I would say yes, but for the sake of uniformity then, other skills should too.

Afterall, I have a food storage bin, bulk storage bins, one should prepare for winter.  I can imagine a lot of push-back against this from folks though.

 

Ok I lied, this one is lastly, sounds like you might be interested in:

http://www.amazon.com/Spring-without-Bees-Collapse-Endangered/dp/B0058M8WSW

 

::Edit:: also in the pvp part, a horse that gets stung by a bee irl can take off in a hurry.  Not a happy camper.  Would that be a useful tie-in for pvp defense?

Edited June 23, 2014 by Teksan

[Druidnature 1,118]

I will say here, at the time being I didn't feel like reading that, i'll try to come back later when I do... But one thing I wish to see.

 

 

I would like different types of trees and flowers to have a effect on the bees, different trees*/flowers in the area influencing the traits, or anything really, would be very nice. 

Edited June 23, 2014 by Druidnature

[Tissotx 217]

BEES!!!

+1

[Battlepaw 585]

I will say here, at the time being I didn't feel like reading that, i'll try to come back later when I do... But one thing I wish to see.

 

 

I would like different types of trees and flowers to have a effect on the bees, different trees*/flowers in the area influencing the traits, or anything really, would be very nice. 

 

would be interesting if different regions will spawn swarms with queens that have different traits, such as steppe areas spawning swarms with fierce traits, etc. regional, so that trade in queens would be necessary, or players would have to hunt down swarms, or wild beehives in different areas of servers to find the traits they need.   

 

As for flowers, would be interesting if different kinds of flowers were useful. As well as a complete total of different flowers, flower pots, flowerbeds, etc in a large area should contribute to the honey stockpiles of a colony.    You can keep bees successfully in cities, they do find plenty of sources of sugar and pollen even without huge fields, its just a bit more difficult sometimes.   The placement of your Apary should take this into account, putting it next to your grape fields, or rose bushes should affect it, just like if you try to plant an apiary on a rocky land area, with no sources of food for them should make a massive impact that even sugar water can't overcome.   

 

Perhaps the way the mechanics would work is this:  

 

Wurm would factor everything as a value to bees in an area around it.   The better the number, the more food sources, and the more diverse the flowers, plants, trees, bushes, etc the higher it is.  Sort of like haveing a nutrition value, this is a diversity value for the local ecology.    The amount of food is determined by what types, if there is sugar water available, or what season it is, etc.     

[Forgedrake 130]

ok I'm gonna admit my adhd made me glaze over when I saw the wall of text but I want bee's as maple syrup replacement because I really like making wines and other maple syrup related things and I get like 1-2 days every 30 - I have a life (hey stop snickering I really do)and can not always be online long those days  and would love to see wax and honey added

Edited June 25, 2014 by Forgedrake

[Battlepaw 585]

ok I'm gonna admit my adhd made me glaze over when I saw the wall of text but I want bee's as maple syrup replacement because I really like making wines and other maple syrup related things and I get like 1-2 days every 30 - I have a life (hey stop snickering I really do)and can not always be online long those days  and would love to see wax and honey added

Would be interesting.  Also I think many players have wanted mead as well for years now, myself among them.   

[Tarkie 139]

you had me at "bee" no more readin needed

+1

[Sevenless 385]

I think the idea can be simplified in a couple places and achieve the same net effect from the player's point of view.

-Nurse/Guard/Drones for example aren't really needed, just a general bee population. The player can't realistically interact/modify with them, and "traits" would effectively act by governing those distributions anyway.

-Wax should just be automatically required for the apiary rather than dealing with differing decay rates.

-Seasonal effects should be nixed if this require active tending and isn't passive like fruit trees.

-Apiary death mechanics sound fiddly, would be easier just to not give the player option to harvest so much honey the hive dies.

-Apiary having damage radius causes PvP issues, and could be really annoying for village setup. I'd prefer if it just attacks people interacting with it.

 

I also feel we can do a condensed summary of this. Do be aware I modified the points I differ with you on, if you want to take and modify this summary for your post to suit your tastes feel free.

 

Swarm:

-Spawns, 1 tile aggro, Can be used to populate Apiary

 

Hive:

-Formed after 1-5 days of swarm, 2 tile aggro, can be destroyed for 1 time gain of products, can be used to populate Apiary

 

Apiary:

-Construction: 25 planks, 5 small nails, and 4 shafts, bees wax and they require 40 carpentry.  

-Requires tending, can be harvested for bee products multiple times, eventually decays away into a swarm (repairable with bees wax?)

 

Bee Traits:

-Jelly bred queens can be bred with their own hive, or crossbred with another. Queens decay in inventory like food.

-Various traits with degrees of intensity and impacts. Can be seen with sufficient beekeeping skill or whatever we call it.

 

Wild Hive Products: (Choosing not to include honey so players need to cultivate bees to get it)

Wild Queen (no traits)

Bees Wax

 

Apiary Products:

Royal jelly: Hatches new queen from apiary. Does stuff

Honey: Does stuff

Bees Wax: Does stuff and is used in Apiary creation

 

A lot of this hinges on impactful uses for honey/wax/royal jelly.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Sevenless

[Tissotx 217]

On WurmOnline.com offical homepage there should be a notice:

• Game does not contain bees.
  

Just to not get new players false expectation of gameplay

[Forgedrake 130]

Would be interesting.  Also I think many players have wanted mead as well for years now, myself among them.   

if it has some kinda stat boost for drinking it I'm game

[Battlepaw 585]

if it has some kinda stat boost for drinking it I'm game

I'd settle for it just being different.    

 

Everyone wants beekeeping to be something that a newbie can get into, but meh, you have ton of advantages possible with keeping an apiary.  You should have to earn them, not just be given the ability to make them early on, same with other aspects of beekeeping, breeding queens and getting the stats up in a colony should only be possible if you have the skill for it.   

 

Any newbie shouldn't be able to slap one together.  They can however harvest wild beehives if they find them, and get honey, beeswax, etc from those. Even tend them to try to keep the small colony alive.  They would probably get common, especially when players abandon all their colonies and they all swarm.   Wild beehives everywhere in the area.   That's why I wanted 40 carpentry for creation of  an apiary, since what that does is allow you to keep a stable bee population around for resources.   You would also need a lot of supporting skills, or players with those skills.  Cloth tailor for one, so you can keep repairing the protective clothing.   A player with high carpentry should be available to keep the apiary's as high QL as possible.   

 

The whole point is that it should be a village effort.   Not just something as common as dirt.  I really enjoyed the old system of making wine (where you got tons of pig food, and made dishwater), it was extremely hard and that's why I liked it.  For the challenge.   Bees shouldn't be easy to keep, and even the most experienced keepers, should lose a colony every once in a while if they make a mistake. There should be interesting problems that develop with keeping them.  All of that difficulty and challenge is what makes it an interesting system and keeps players working at it and getting better.