Wiki - Apiculture

Apiculture is the practice of keeping bees as well as the manufacturing of honey and beeswax.

On Legends of Sosaria Beehive Deeds may be purchased from Bee Keepers. Beehives must be placed in your house to be functional. Players may manage any number of hives but each will add it's own requirements both in time and resources. It is suggested to start with a few and grow your Bee Yard to a size you can handle.

Setting up your Bee Yard

Bees need water and flowers to be nearby in order for them to create honey. Without them both they will leave an area or die if they can't.

Water sources include water pitchers, water troughs and fountains.

Flowers may be grown, purchased from other players, or created with Yard Clippers. Bee Friendly plants include: Snowdrops, Poppies, Gardenias, Rosebushes, Calla Lillies, or any variety of flower.

Bee Hive Stages

Bee Hives move through three stages while the bees do their work. They are:

Colonizing

Scouts are sent to locate flowers and water. If they do not find adequate sources they will not colonize the hive.

Brooding

Eggs are laid as the bees prepare for full scale production.

Producing

Excess wax and honey can be harvested as the bees work tirelessly.

Beehive Health

An overall indication of a hive's overall health.

Thriving

Extra wax and honey are produced from the exceptionally healthy hive.

Healthy

Excess wax and honey are being produced.

Sickly

Only enough wax and honey are produced to maintain the hive.

Dying

Immediate action required to prevent bee population decrease.

Empty

No bees present. Use an axe to chop.

Beehive Population

A general idea of the number of bees in a hive.

Hive population cap at 100k.

The larger the population the more water and flowers are required to maintain a hive, and the larger the range the bees will travel to find them.

The formula for the range is 1 tile, plus 1 tile per 10k bees in the hive up to 11 tiles at 100k bees. The day after reaching 100k the range increases to 12.

A hive has a minimum range of 3 tiles.

Apiculture Gump

Reachable by double clicking a beehive

This gump is used for all maintenance and harvesting of the hive.

Beeswax Production - Click to harvest beeswax and honey.

Garden Infestation - A '-' here means a poison potion is required to cure the infestation.

Garden Disease - A '-' here means a cure potion is required to cure the disease.

Water - A '-' means not enough water is available. '+' may also be bad as too much water breeds disease.

Flower - A '-' means not enouh plants are available. '+' may lead to infestation.

Hive Growth Checks

Hives have growth checks at the same time every day on a world save. The initial time is determined at the first save after placing the hive, but it will be reset by server restarts and rollback.

A hives last Growth Check results show in the upper right corner of the Apiculture Gump.

! Not Healthy

! Low Resources

- Population Decrease

+ Population Growth

+ Stage Increase or Resource Production

Tending the Hives

Treat each hive separately daily.

A yellow '-' requires one potion.

A red '-' requires two potions.

Greater Agility

Grants a boost to production and two extra tiles of bees range to find plants and water for the duration of the day. Only effective during Production Stage.

Greater Poison

Used to treat infestation. Using too many can harm the bees!

Greater Cure

Used to treat disease and to combat using too much poison.

Greater Heal

Used to heal bees based on their health rating.

Dying - 3 potions

Sickly - 2 potions

Healthy - 1 potion

Harvesting Wax and Honey

Wax and Honey may be harvested from each hive that has been in the Producing stage by using a Hive Tool (purchasable from Bee Keepers). Harvesting Honey uses one charge each, while all the Wax on a hive may be harvested for a single charge. For this reason, it is wise to wait until a hive is close to full before harvesting.

There is also a byproduct of harvesting Wax called Slum Gum. Currently it has no purpose, but don't put it past us to give it a use in the future.

Each hive can hold a maximum of 255 in each resource before extra production is lost.

Raw Wax can be purified into Pure Beeswax by using a Small Wax Pot (craftable on the Tinkering Menu). Pure Beeswax is the main material used in the Wax Sculpting Custom Craft and is used with the Tamer's Bell to create Pet Leashes. It can also be sold for a fair amount of gold back to Bee Keepers.

3 Honey can be bottled into a Jar of Honey. These can be used in the Cooking menu or sold back to the Bee Keepers as well.