Using the Fruit Press on Honeycomb (New to v1.21.0)

[Professor Dragon]

Hi Folks,

I'm loving using the fruit press for bulk lots of honey.
This is a long time player requested feature that has been added to v1.21.0.

It's certainly a much appreciated update, especially for those of us with many bee hives.
I thought I'd write up a post outlining the use, and a few quirks.

1. Loaded up with honeycomb and ready to go!

You use <Cntrl> + right click to load up stacks of honeycomb into the central part of the fruit press, just as you do for fruit and berries.
Honeycomb stacks to eight, but the fruit press takes a lot more, which leads to some interesting scenarios I'll discuss below.

Tip: Be sure to have your bucket under the press before using the handle.

2. Squeeze away!

Wait - give the press time to do its work. When it is done it will advise the amount of Honey and Beeswax that is available.

3. Release the screw, and collect your prizes.

The honey will be in the bucket (You remembered to leave that there, right?) and the central Honeycomb "mash" will immediately convert to Beeswax when you collect it.

THOUGHTS

Overall, a nifty feature addition, which does exactly what is required of it.

There are a few oddities though.

• The maximum amount you may add to the Fruit Press is 49 Honeycomb, or 6 x 8 stacks plus 1.
  This is an odd amount, and I wonder if it was intended. I would have thought that rounding to a full stack, such as six stacks of eight honeycomb would have made more sense.
   
• The tooltip on the press correctly advises this will produce 9.8L of honey.
  Again, this is an odd amount - are we just being trolled at this point?  
  If there is going to be an odd stack split, it may as well work in our favour and we be allowed to add enough Honeycomb to produce an even 10L of Honey to match the bucket.
   
• SUGGESTION - Let's split the difference
  A press is a big, powerful machine. How about we put in 6 x 8 honeycomb and get out an even 10L?
  You only get the 0.2L "bonus amount" of honey if you completely fill the press with 48 Honeycomb, but I think that is fair.
   
• You can override the Beeswax default stack size of 32.
  Was this intended? With the fruit press  your stack size is now 49 Beeswax.
  You could say "bug" or you could say "benefit of mechanisation." I'll leave that to wiser heads.
   
• If you thought the bulk chest space saving was good on that one . . .
  Honeycomb only stacks to eight. But if you remove the mash prior to squeezing, you now have a block of "Wet mashed honeycomb" which contains "9.8l" of Honey.
  It stacks to 64!
  Honey doesn't go off, so we can ignore the "perish speed" mentioned on the fruit press.
  So some maniac running a server honey farm could have one Crate with 16 x 64 = 1,024 L of honey in it.
  And because they're manics, they'll have multiple Crates. They'll skip straight past double chests for the efficiency. Madness!
  
  I'm not sure what the solution to this is, although a normal person won't encounter this issue.
  
  
   
• Once again, I am irked by the mixed capitalisation. "Honey" gets a capital but "beeswax" doesn't? Come on Devs.  
  And while we are at it, are we using "l" or "L" or writing "litres" in full? Consistency peeps, consistency!
  "L" is often recommended to avoid confusion.
   
• Fix the Honey Trade to use regular ceramic bowls.
  I mentioned this in another post, but the Survival Goods Traders are no longer accepting honey in the standard bowls, which pushes this to a late game item to trade.
  I think that is an oversight that should be corrected. 
  But in the meantime, rather than fill a Crate with wet mashed honeycomb, I think I'll look into mass producing beenades as I don't have a use for the honey currently.

 

My final thought is that although the automation is fantastic and appreciated, there is something immensely satisfying about squeezing the honeycomb by hand.
I think it is the sound that goes with the animation.
So while I might use the fruit press for bulk runs, the traditional method still appeals to me.

Thanks for reading this far,
Professor Dragon.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[OBAMFSpike]

This is a lot to take in, considering ive only used the wax to create candles for lanterns. 

From being a Beek in the past I'm forced to question why we can't have an extruder or comb spinner that works in tandem with the windmill? 

Very cool information concerning the wet mash aspect you've mentioned. Only stacking eight combs is rather space consuming. 

[Professor Dragon]

5 hours ago, OBAMFSpike said:

. . . I'm forced to question why we can't have an extruder or comb spinner that works in tandem with the windmill?

You've driven me to look up additional information on the internet!

That does sound cool. As to why, I guess the answer is a mix of:

• Maybe like me, the dev. team didn't know that "those were things."
• It is very specialised tech. for a small use case. Most people will never need that much honey processed. (Kind of curious if there are power users)
• The users asked specifically for the fruit press to handle honey. I guess they didn't know either/or were cool with a reuse of tech.
• The fruit press was there already in the game, and requires much less dev. time repurposing than scratch building new assets and mechanics.
• This level of detail might be appropriate for a mod, such as Golden Combs.

TLDR: Nice idea. However probably tweaking the existing setup will be a priority as being more practical to implement quickly. Will depend on user feedback I gues.

[OBAMFSpike]

Nothing new under the sun. Right? There are many things I didn't know either and still many more. Im an H button fanatic. But what a neat game regardless. Very impressive. 

Edited August 28, 2025 by OBAMFSpike

[Maelstrom]

21 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

• It is very specialised tech. for a small use case. Most people will never need that much honey processed. (Kind of curious if there are power users)

Sooooo....   Beeswax is used to seal crocks and as you mentioned, make candles for lanterns.   I typically make a trunk full of sealed meals prepping for winter and then there's crafting a stack or more of lanterns for...   

reasons.

[Ochsenkopf]

I tried to use the press for honey, but it didn't go into the bucket and now I have a wet honey comb  block that I can't get the honey out off.

Is this a bug or does anyone know how I can get my honey?

[Mrozak]

1 hour ago, Ochsenkopf said:

I tried to use the press for honey, but it didn't go into the bucket and now I have a wet honey comb  block that I can't get the honey out off.

Is this a bug or does anyone know how I can get my honey?

I think this happens when you do not put enough honey combs (or any other stuff, berries too) into the press.
Not sure if it is intended, but i had this happen to me several times, until i started to make sure i fill the press completely.
I think you can salvage your "wet honey comb" by putting it back into the press and adding more honey to fill it up, and then squeeze.

[Professor Dragon]

13 hours ago, Ochsenkopf said:

I tried to use the press for honey, but it didn't go into the bucket and now I have a wet honey comb  block that I can't get the honey out off.

Is this a bug or does anyone know how I can get my honey?

@Mrozak is correct. You need to add a minimum amount of honeycomb (or fruit or berries) for the fruit press to work.
Unfortunately, it leaves you in an awkward state with some unprocessed materials. You might be able to add more honeycomb to the existing wet mash?

See this bug report here, which was closed out at won't be addressed:
https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/6856
"Closed this as not planned"

My rule of thumb is: Fill a fruit press completely where possible.

Professor Dragon.