More Realistic Beekeeping (Smoker, Protective Gear, Beehive Frames & Honey Processing)

[Ango77]

Hi, I have a suggestion to make the beekeeping system more realistic and immersive.

It would be great if bees behaved more like in real life. For example, players could use a smoker to calm the bees before interacting with the hive. Without using smoke or proper protection, bees could become aggressive and sting the player.

In addition, players could craft and wear protective beekeeping clothing to reduce the risk of getting stung while working with hives.

It would also be really interesting to have a more realistic beehive structure. Instead of simple interaction, players could have a proper beehive that can be opened, where they can take out individual frames with honeycombs. This would make the process feel more hands-on and closer to real-life beekeeping.

For honey production, it would be interesting if the process was more detailed. After collecting honeycombs, players would first need to remove the beeswax (uncapping), then extract the honey using a honey extractor, and finally filter or sieve it before it is ready to use.

It would also be really cool to add related beekeeping items such as a honey extractor, an uncapping fork, a honey sieve, and a full protective suit. These items could be crafted or obtained later in the game and would add more depth to the beekeeping system.

This would make the whole process feel more realistic and rewarding, especially for players who enjoy detailed survival mechanics.

I believe this system could also fit well into the game’s progression, starting simple and becoming more advanced over time.

 

[DeanF]

I have proposed this before, too.  But I think that for the devs it comes down to a game balance issue.

Game devs in general- across the board- have learned that passive income can really kill a game's intent.  (Well, in this sort of game.)  And having something that you only have to set up once and then stop by and pick up the result every now and again is passive income.  It's the same issue as when players enslave villagers in Minecraft, only in this case it is the bees who are being "enslaved".  That's why they have settled on old-fashioned straw skeps that have to be destroyed to harvest them.  Rebuilding the skep and capturing another swarm is effort that you have to make, so it is not passive income.

That being said, we absolutely should have smokers.  The dummy thing seems silly, and smoking beehives dates back to the 5th Dynasty in Egypt.  And I certainly wouldn't mind more detail in the whole honey/wax processing part.  Just "squeezing it into a bucket" seems crude.  But on the other hand maybe they did it that way to be sure that apiculture was possible with stone age technology?

Edited Thursday at 06:10 PM by DeanF

[Heegrim]

I don’t know if it has to be this complicated but I do think there should be another tier of hives. They should still require some care so they are not just ‘passive income’, like having to repair the frames with twine or preparing the hive for winter somehow (cover with linen sheet maybe?). It would just be a more compact and pretty way to make honey instead of having fields of hundreds of skeps like I see some players do. 
 

I think putting the honeycomb in the fruitpress is good enough for extraction. Maybe the sieve should have to be inserted under the press with the bucket for it to work. 

[BoxFort]

12 hours ago, Heegrim said:

I don’t know if it has to be this complicated but I do think there should be another tier of hives. They should still require some care so they are not just ‘passive income’, like having to repair the frames with twine or preparing the hive for winter somehow (cover with linen sheet maybe?). It would just be a more compact and pretty way to make honey instead of having fields of hundreds of skeps like I see some players do. 

perhaps the player should have to inspect the hive for mites/rot and replace comb frames over time (the rot could easily be as simple as making a frame cost 4 boards and a beeswax, and give 3-4 boards (weighted to like 80% for 4) back when extracting the honey), and also when mites do infect a frame have that ruin the frame's honey, and potentially spread if the player doesn't catch it quickly. that and as you mentioned, help the bees through winter, especially in colder climates (necessitating leaving the bees with more combs full of honey the colder the winter gets)