How many skeps?

[Thorfinn]

Since I am currently pouting about not being able to load my world  I was just wondering what y'all consider to be "enough" skeps. I get an early start on bees because I really want lanterns. And I want sealed crocks before my berries start going bad. Why? I don't know. Probably because compost takes way too long to bother with.

So for a long time, I stabilized on a 6x6 skep apiary. Then I found out that crops are also considered flowers, and started covering my irrigation tiles with skeps. At first, I was able to control it, but, as with all addictions, soon I am placing skeps on every damn spot I can. I went from 36 skeps to, in the last game, I kid you not, 98 skeps, one for every water spot in my 7x14 (8-around-1) farm. Yes, that's right. I'm also growing around 800 crops by mid June. A trivial fraction of which I'm ever going to eat, and, though I won't admit it, even converting them to dough is not going to end up with an appreciable number of compost by the time I'm on to the next game, even if I do stack barrels to worldHeight. Addiction is a terrible thing.

So what kinds of levels do y'all stop at? When is enough enough? Do you find yourself replanting turnips because, though you already have a couple storage vessels of them, you have seeds, and it's just a compulsion? How many storage vessels of grain do you accumulate before you can tell yourself to stop?

Edited March 11, 2025 by Thorfinn

[dakko]

Crops are flowers?! 

My current game has a wild hive very near to spawn and I began developing a 4x6 apiary right away (size determined by aesthetics of the forest space surrounding wild hive). I've not settled on a preferred size yet, but I can sure tell you it's about to expand!

eta: spawn is very close to desert and trader, beginner base next to trader; garden is between base and wild hive at the edge of an oak forest. Oh! And I play with patchy climate, so my 'biomes' are weird.

Edited March 11, 2025 by dakko

[Never Jhonsen]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

I was just wondering what y'all consider to be "enough" skeps.

I have 25 skeps in a 5x5 arrangement, with each skep getting it's own dedicated 5x5 section full of flowers, and a 21x20 field of cattails to replenish the skeps.

Yes, I have a LOT of beeswax and honey. No, this is not overkill, as I need the honey to handle making jam with my blueberry field, which is almost 32x32; I think I have 5 rows left to fill?

[Zane Mordien]

I set up for like 15-20 but probably end up with only 9-12 since I get tired of collecting the reeds. I didn't know crops count as flowers though. That is interesting. I end up with so much honey and wax that I can't use it even with that few skeps. 

[LadyWYT]

Just enough skeps to populate the apiaries that From Golden Combs adds.

On vanilla settings? It varies. I usually have about a dozen, which is enough to produce a fair amount of honey, but not so much that I'm going to get annoyed just collecting the clay and reeds for mass skep production.

[Cetasaya]

As many as would look good in whatever size base im using.  Usually a multiple or 6 or 12 for some reason lol I dunno why.  Spaced out in the same grid pattern you'd use for optimal iridium sprinkler layout in Stardew.  Each hive gets a sh!tload of flowers for speedy harvesting and population.

Honey and wax are very useful but are neither essential nor do you need a whole lot.  Jam's saeity is exremely underwhelming and fat is also useable to seal crocks.

Doing my first VS secluded island playthrough rn and I didn't get any hives and im not missing them.  No traders, ruins or bony soil either so lanterns aren't possible but that's just about it.

[Maelstrom]

I go with 4x4 with one block between skeps.  Incredibly easy if the skeps are in the middle of a dense patch of flowers.  Current apiary has 175 flowers per skep.  192 reeds is more than enough to keep up with honey production, but I'm not harvesting skeps as soon as they're harvestable either.

 

[Steel General]

I hang mine from a 5x5 trellis with a post at each corner and a hole in the middle (to shorten the path to the flowers on top), so twenty. However, I rarely actually get it filled with skeps, wind up with just a handful at a time - anywhere from 4-8, but that's more than enough to meet my demand for honey and wax.