Forestry Bee Help

[Tjaden]

Ok, So I've just started Bees, being doing quite well with them, I vaguely understand them. But here is my problem, I'm trying to work my way to Emerald Bees, I have 2 Noble Drones, 3 Resiliant Drones, and 2 Resiliant Princesses. I know if you breed a Princess and Drone of the same sort it will give you an extra drone, but I don't know how to breed more Princesses, So how to get Noble Princesses.

Another problem I also have been having is Water Bees, I need to breed a Water Bee with a Resiliant Bee, but I don't know which one would be a Princess and so on. I have 50 Water Drones, but 1 Water princess, I've been breeding them together, but I don't know how to get more Princess.

If you know the best way to make an automated way to get a constant supply of Emerald Bees that would be amazing, I've looked up videos but they aren't automated ways and they only give ocasional Emerald Bees and not a constant supply of them. Thanks

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

The resulting bees from a successful mutation can give you princess or drones. For each princess you have to:

a. start fresh with a from the hive princess
edit: b. breed a princess using target drones (see Maldroth's post below)
b. use extra bee genetic machines to make species serums to give the y species to your x species princess.

It doesn't matter which way the bees go so it can be water princess and resilient drone or resilient princess and water drone.

Using genetic machines you can pull the emerald species trait out of an emerald bee into a serum, you can then use the serum to make another species of bee into an emerald bee.

Check my videos on valuable bees (there's 5 in the humpcatting playlist on my channel) as valuable bees have a similar path to emerald bees. They cover power needs, genetic machines, breeding, target traits etc.

 

[Tjaden]

So what would I have to do to get Water Princess's and Noble Princess's when I only have Water and Noble Drones? What would I need to breed with them? And I shall watch your videos in a minute

 

[Maldroth]

So what would I have to do to get Water Princess's and Noble Princess's when I only have Water and Noble Drones? What would I need to breed with them? And I shall watch your videos in a minute

Tjaden, you can use the Extra Bees machines but you can also use traditional breeding methods to turn a princess of one type into another. Let me elaborate.

First with any breeding you will only ever get one princess. If you want more princesses you will need to collect more in the wild from hives. Now you said you have more noble drones but need another noble princess. Take one of your new princesses and combine them with the noble drone. Then once that dies you combine the princess again with that same batch of noble drones. Keep doing this over and over and after a few generations, between 3-6 on average, your princess will now match the drones.

Whenever I get a stable strain of bee that I like I breed them for a while to get a half to full stack of drones to keep around for later crossbreeding or to make another princess if I need. This is a great way to do this before you get Extra Bees machines up.

 

[Tjaden]

Tjaden, you can use the Extra Bees machines but you can also use traditional breeding methods to turn a princess of one type into another. Let me elaborate.

First with any breeding you will only ever get one princess. If you want more princesses you will need to collect more in the wild from hives. Now you said you have more noble drones but need another noble princess. Take one of your new princesses and combine them with the noble drone. Then once that dies you combine the princess again with that same batch of noble drones. Keep doing this over and over and after a few generations, between 3-6 on average, your princess will now match the drones.

Whenever I get a stable strain of bee that I like I breed them for a while to get a half to full stack of drones to keep around for later crossbreeding or to make another princess if I need. This is a great way to do this before you get Extra Bees machines up.

Thankyou, that has explained it quite well for me, with my noble drones, I only have 2 Noble drones, so what would you suggest for what Princess to use to try and get the Noble Princess.

Also, Could you explain these Extra Bees machines? I don't think I know about them?

 

[MilConDoin]

Also, Could you explain these Extra Bees machines? I don't think I know about them?

Tier 1
Acclimatiser: Change the temperature and humidity tolerances of your bees. Costs material corresponding to the wanted change, e.g. Ice for increased cold tolerance.
Apiarist Databank: Same like the handheld version. Gives you information about all the default traits your bees have.
Indexer: A giant Apiarist Chest. If you use FTB Ultimate, update Extra Bees manually to 1.5.0.6b to fix a bug with the indexer.
Tier 2
Genepool: Turn bees you don't need anymore into liquid DNA. This is used for several other machines. Analyzed bees give more DNA than unidentified ones.
Sequencer: Copy default traits of a hive-found bee into a template. Has been reported to have several problems. Suggestion: Don't use it.
Splicer: Use to copy the content of a template unto another bee, to be used in conjunction with the Sequencer.
Tier 3
Isolator: Extracts randomly a variable trait (or the species) of a bee into a serum. Unwanted serums can be sterilized again in a furnace.
Replicator: Copy the trait from one serum to another.
Purifier: Using liquid DNA the quality of a serum is raised. Use only a best quality serum, so you won't get negative side-effects on using them in an Inoculator.
Inoculator: Try to copy the trait of a serum unto a bee. Only use best quality serums. One try uses up one charge gained from the Synthesizer.
Synthesizer: Fill a serum with liquid DNA to charge it up. This will lower the quality of a serum, so purify it afterwards.

 

[Maldroth]

Thankyou, that has explained it quite well for me, with my noble drones, I only have 2 Noble drones, so what would you suggest for what Princess to use to try and get the Noble Princess.

Also, Could you explain these Extra Bees machines? I don't think I know about them?

Tjaden, With those two drones if you have already moved the princess that made them onto a later breed you will need to breed a noble drone with some princess and then beealyze the children and keep any that come up with noble in the mix and then breed the princess again with the second noble. From those two breedings keep the bees that come up pure noble and breed them again until you consistently get only nobles. You might need to keep some hybrids around to put back in the mix if things swing the other way with the other breed.

Breeding in this manner you are playing with a random number generator and things can swing for or against you. Another way to hedge your bets is to breed in pairs so you get two chances of what you are trying to get and you can move bees across if one pair goes bad but the other is succeeding.

Search around the forums for some of my other posts I talk about natural bee breeding without using Extra Bees machines. There is no negative to using them really I just got used to doing it without them.

I've just started using Extra Bees machines now so I don't have a ton of experience on them but I would look at the videos mentioned in this thread as well as DireWolf20 has a few out there when he spotlighted the mod.

I know the top end there are 5 machines. One that liquefies bees down into BeeDNA to use in two other machines. Another will copy random traits of a bee into a serum to use on other bees. You can get things like their species, their productivity trait, their fertility, etc. There is a replicator that you can copy serums. There is one that lets you put charges into the serum to create more uses. This takes BeeDNA. This will degrade the quality as you add. There is a purifier that will improve the quality of the serum. This will also take BeeDNA. Bad serum can damage bees and yield unpredictable results. Finally you have the machine that will apply a serum to the bee. It will use a charge and have a chance to apply the trait to the bee. Sometimes takes several charges on one bee. All of these machines can take 25-100 MJ/t and if you are using many at once it can really drain the power grid. That is the main downside to using them. They are more of an mid to late game thing for bees in my opinion.

 

[Kik]

Great information in this thread all round.
One useful thing I'd like to add is where to find more water and jungle Princesses in the wild as I originally had trouble with that myself.
You can find the water hives as far down as 9 or 12 layers from the surface of the water. I found the fastest way to collect a good bunch was to
swim the channels of rivers and edges of the ocean looking specifically for the bulleye pattern of the hives.
Jungle ones were also challenging as they usually hang from the leaves of jungle trees and their colour doesn't stand out as much against their background.

 

[snooder]

If your goal is to get a drones really fast (as it should be if you are trying to naturally breed princess) you'll want to use a wintry princess. They have max fertility so they pump out 4 drones every cycle.

Just breed the first noble drone with a wintry princess and you'll get a wintry-noble hybrid princess and wintry-noble hybrid drones. Then pick the wintry-noble hybrid drone with the best stats (preferrably 4x drones on each side) and breed it back to the princess. Keep doing that until you get a noble-noble princess with 4x drones on each side.

 

[Tjaden]

Tjaden, With those two drones if you have already moved the princess that made them onto a later breed you will need to breed a noble drone with some princess and then beealyze the children and keep any that come up with noble in the mix and then breed the princess again with the second noble. From those two breedings keep the bees that come up pure noble and breed them again until you consistently get only nobles. You might need to keep some hybrids around to put back in the mix if things swing the other way with the other breed.

Breeding in this manner you are playing with a random number generator and things can swing for or against you. Another way to hedge your bets is to breed in pairs so you get two chances of what you are trying to get and you can move bees across if one pair goes bad but the other is succeeding.

This is rather useful, I do ask you one thing though, I got the noble drones without a noble princess, I cannot remember the mix to get them though. As I am still slightly confused, I shall tell you the drones I have, and if you could tell me the way you would get to the noble drones that would be amazing.

I have

2 Water Princess's
2 Resiliant Princess's
2 Resiliant Drones (Im breeding the Resiliant drones, getting 1-2 Drones when I breed a Resiliant Princess with a Resiliant Drone)
1 Hardy Drones
3 Tolerant Drones
2 Diligent Drones
4+ Diligent Princess's

I have a few others, but if you could tell me the path you would take to get the Noble Drones/Princess's that would be so useful. Then once I have the Nobles, I can then use my Water Drones, with Resiliant Queens to make the Lapis Drones, then I can Breed Lapis and Nobles to get Emeralds.

I'm not sure if you awnsered, but if I have 2 Water Princess's now, would the only way to get more water Princess's be to go and collect them from hives? Because they are mundane you can't breed them?

 

[MilConDoin]

This is rather useful, I do ask you one thing though, I got the noble drones without a noble princess, I cannot remember the mix to get them though. As I am still slightly confused, I shall tell you the drones I have, and if you could tell me the way you would get to the noble drones that would be amazing.

I have

2 Water Princess's
2 Resiliant Princess's
2 Resiliant Drones (Im breeding the Resiliant drones, getting 1-2 Drones when I breed a Resiliant Princess with a Resiliant Drone)
1 Hardy Drones
3 Tolerant Drones
2 Diligent Drones
4+ Diligent Princess's

I have a few others, but if you could tell me the path you would take to get the Noble Drones/Princess's that would be so useful. Then once I have the Nobles, I can then use my Water Drones, with Resiliant Queens to make the Lapis Drones, then I can Breed Lapis and Nobles to get Emeralds.

I'm not sure if you awnsered, but if I have 2 Water Princess's now, would the only way to get more water Princess's be to go and collect them from hives? Because they are mundane you can't breed them?

I think you confuse mutation and breeding.
When you breed a princess and a drone together, the resulting offspring will take one allele from the princess and one from the drone. By choosing the princess and drone carefully, you can with a bit of luck and time refine your offspring into the best possible stats available on the original bees.
When you breed to bees together, which can result in a mutation, then this mutation is a chance applied during the generation of the offspring. So you could receive stats from the princess, from the drone or from the new mutation.

If you breed a common bee and a cultivated bee together, the possible results are: common, cultivated, noble (via mutation), diligent (via mutation).

For your question with the water princesses: You can convert other princesses to water. Simplest way (like Maldroth said): Put the other princess into the apiary together with a bunch of water drones. When the queen died, put the resulting princess back into the left slot, where it will breed with the next of the water drones you put in in the beginning. Do this for a while, until the princess is water/water.

If you want to know, which parents are needed for a mutation to noble species: http://mc.nessirojgaming.eu/bees/index.php?title=Noble_Bee or the corresponding part on the official FTB-Wiki: http://wiki.feed-the-beast.com/index.php?title=Noble_Bee

 

[Maldroth]

Well said MilConDion, this is similar to how I would have responded. I know sometimes when I used Soul Frames to hope for a mutation I can sometimes get really easy with certain strains and end up with a faster jump up than what I was looking for. So unsure how you got nobles so fast without a princess for it. My guess is you got them from a cultivated/common mix.

Also if you are not doing this already you should, get a beealyzer and scan all of your bees when breeding to make sure the pairs of drones and princesses are passing forward the traits you want to see.

 

[Kik]

Determining the usefulness of traits can be confusing to us newbies though ^_^.
As for getting to Emerald Bees asap, if you don't object to major spoilers, Direwolf20 has exactly that covered in today's Let's Play.
Season 5 - Episode 58 Alveary UberBreeder

He's had his bee breeding set up for a good while and uses the alveary but he does show each step of the mutations needed
for the breed you're after so it might be worth a looksee.

 

[Tjaden]

So just a bit of an Update, I've gotten some lovely Lapis Drones and Pure Princess's which is awfully nice, as well as lots of Pure Noble Drones/Princess's But the problem is. I'm out of Honey, I have 2 Meadows/Forest Bee's automating, but they are barely giving me honey, so how would you guys recommend I get honey? As I need it to make sure I can breed the right Lapis Drones to get more Pure Lapis Princess's as I am going to be doing Lapis Princess's and Noble Drones.

 

[MilConDoin]

a) Always use frames (untreated/impregnated/proven) when you want products, in this case the honey combs.
b) You could try to breed to cultivated, because they are fast workers (if you don't breed it out by accident).

 

[Bagman817]

Also consider the Apiarist's Database
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgYOUdPlRXN-dEpUOUtKdDNqa29DN0cyam45Mlo5N3c#gid=3

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

I keep a max fertility cultivated pair going for honey and drones (for dna) until I get honey from more advanced bees later on, your lapis combs drop honey for example.

Industrious bee is also good to have (essential if you ever want alvearies), they produce honey and honeydew (which can also be squeezed into honey).

 

[Tjaden]

Ok, so I've been having a few more problems, the main one being that even though I have full on automation getting me honey combs, the first day I had it set up, overnight I got 5 Stacks, and the past 2 days I've been getting half a stack. Even with Impregnated Frames, the honeycombs have been popping out of the pipes onto the ground, and despawning and not going through the apiarist pipe like they are supposed too. It worked to start with but now it dosen't even though nothing has changed. Now i'm mass producing Royal Jelly I really don't want to loose any of it as I need lots of it. So anyone have any idea as to what is happening?

 

[Bagman817]

Ok, so I've been having a few more problems, the main one being that even though I have full on automation getting me honey combs, the first day I had it set up, overnight I got 5 Stacks, and the past 2 days I've been getting half a stack. Even with Impregnated Frames, the honeycombs have been popping out of the pipes onto the ground, and despawning and not going through the apiarist pipe like they are supposed too. It worked to start with but now it dosen't even though nothing has changed. Now i'm mass producing Royal Jelly I really don't want to loose any of it as I need lots of it. So anyone have any idea as to what is happening?

Sounds like you have your piping messed up somehow, but some screenshots would be helpful.

 

[Tjaden]

I just changed it cause Cultivated kept getting in the drone slot some how, so I'm hoping that allows only imperial bees to be put back in and the cultivated go to the chest. The white goes into the Aviary and the black goes into a gold pipe leading to a chest.