Bees not working on trees

[baw179]

I'm trying to start breeding trees but my bees won't do anything. I've got some pure nobles running and I have 2x vanilla oak trees just outside the glass enclosure that the apiaries are in. The trunks of the trees are 3 horizontal spaces away from each apiary and the bottom of the tree canopy is 7 blocks away in total. I've had them running for a full week and no leaves have changed. What am I doing wrong? I thought it was because I hadn't analysed the saplings and bees first, so I've done that but they're still not doing anything.

 

[slay_mithos]

If I understood correctly, what you are doing wrong is that you put 2 oak, and no other tree types.

Just like for bees, the breeding is made by combining different species, so try to put an other forestry-compatible tree (vanilla, saplings from chests...)

 

[baw179]

Yes, just 2 oak trees. I see now, so I need to mix different types of tree then. Seems so obvious... what a nub!

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Putting aside bee pollination speed and working range, keep in mind that if a bee is set to certain types of flower (eg rock) it'll be unable to pollinate trees.

http://ftbwiki.org/Tree_Breeding#Breeding

 

[ThemsAllTook]

Putting aside bee pollination speed and working range, keep in mind that if a bee is set to certain types of flower (eg rock) it'll be unable to pollinate trees.

http://ftbwiki.org/Tree_Breeding#Breeding

Ooh, that's good to know. Maybe putting non-pollination serum on all of my bees wasn't such a great idea after all... though it does mean I can run them near trees I don't want cross-pollinated, which could be handy.

Lots more unintuitive mechanics in tree breeding than in bee breeding. It's growing on me slowly though.

 

[Jesse Benoit]

Putting aside bee pollination speed and working range, keep in mind that if a bee is set to certain types of flower (eg rock) it'll be unable to pollinate trees.

http://ftbwiki.org/Tree_Breeding#Breeding

I feel an urge to give out a man hug! i had some rocky bees set to fast pollination that i was going to use as my "traveling pollinaters" when i went to different biomes for things liek the willow...and NOTHING!!! no cross breeding of the trees at all. Oh man this explains everything i was so freakin confused!! THANK YOU

 

[YX33A]

Also last I checked you had to run your trees through a Treealyzer first, so a straight Oak Sapling is useless, you need at least a Apple Oak. Or something. Maybe they changed it.
*shrug*
I never touch Tree Breeding anyway. Too much work, not enough gain. Though those sweet blocks made in a Woodworker, man...

 

[twisto51]

Please tell us you're wearing Spectacles.

 

[OlexaKid64]

Another tip would be to use the Bee Houses for faster bee pollination. It speeds up pollination 20%. Also consider getting an Alveary to collect pollen to make tree breeding easier (if you have the materials)

 

[Bigpak]

Question, wasn't there a way to manually pollinate trees? Can someone explain if there is a way?

 

[OlexaKid64]

Question, wasn't there a way to manually pollinate trees? Can someone explain if there is a way?

Make an alveary that has alveary sieves in it. Look it up in NEI. But by putting Silk in the sieve, the bee's will pollinate the trees but pollen gets collected in the sieve. That pollen you can right click onto trees to pollinate the tree with that certain tree species. Then you can graft that pollinated leaf.

 

[twisto51]

I found the sieves to be a waste of time. If you have your bees/trees setup properly they'll manage it much faster than you can do using pollen from sieves. The problem with the sieves is that they're completely random, both in what they hold and how often they're populated. Yes, it allows you to use a specific pollen on a specific tree but if you've only got 1 of each of those trees around your row of beehouses the bees are already doing exactly that.

There is a pretty good chance the original poster isn't wearing spectacles and can't see the mutated leaves. Every week we get at least one post about that since the change. Mainly because people are getting their info from outdated wiki/wikia/faqs.

 

[OlexaKid64]

He asked how to do it manually so I told him.

 

[twisto51]

He asked how to do it manually so I told him.

If I were making a criticism of your post I would have quoted it, like now. You told him the how, I told him the why not.

 

[Runo]

If I were making a criticism of your post I would have quoted it, like now. You told him the how, I told him the why not.

Problem with this high ground is that your 'why not' is flawed. You use both to boost past certain species, not use one exclusively (queue Spanish toddler with 'why not both' subtitle). I run two alvearies with 6 sieve blocks each in my pollination area. As an example, I was doing pines yesterday for teching up to hemlock and cedar. Well, in the process of pollenating the trees via the hives, I managed to get 15 bull pine pollen and 11 fir pollen. This allowed me to unlock 4 different species without planting and waiting for crossbreeds because the bull pine is used in 7 or 8 mutations.