Forestry Bee Houses & mutations

[unknown zombie]

I thought that Bee Houses weren't supposed to allow mutations?

I have spent the last few days breeding a Meadows Queen just to get some honeycombs. Since I was under the impression that Bee Houses didn't allow mutation, I have been pumping her full of Wintry Drones, just to be rid of them in a productive way.

Well, to my surprise the Queen started producing Honey Combs and Icy Combs at the same time! When she died after doing that, she popped out a Wintry-Meadows Princess... Then I couldn't use her anymore because the environment was hostile.

What gives? Did something change?

While I'm at it, does anyone know any good sites to read about beekeeping? Up-to-date documentation on all of this beekeeping stuff is really hard to find. I'm looking for basic stuff like how bee houses actually work, and some more advanced stuff like the concepts of breeding good traits across. I'm not looking for just a spreadsheet of this-turns-into-that, because I've got NEI if I wanted to cheat that hard.

 

[Tristam Izumi]

Mutations means things like "Meadows + Forest = Common". What you're seeing is the the normal trait inheritance between two bees, and is totally allowed in the Bee House.

Read up on Punnett squares for understanding how the traits of the offspring are being determined. In the case of bees, red are dominant traits and blue are recessive traits. And yes, species is a trait that follows these same rules (you'll notice some species traits are recessive even).

 

[unknown zombie]

I see. I was under the assumption that "Meadows + Forest = Meadows-Forest" was considered mutating rather than trait inheritance, but I understand now.

Thanks for the link too. Very informative. Basically from that I gather that breeding a Meadows + Forest has a 25% chance of turning into a Meadows or Forest, and a 50% chance to turning into a blend of the two. The chart that I have to use to determine outcomes for breeding two hybrids together, however, will take me a bit to wrap my head around..

 

[MigukNamja]

Bee Hives prevent new species. However, all other kinds of genetic mutations are allowed, which include A-B, B-A, A-A, or B-B princess or drone with traits from either princess or drone.

The lack of new species for a Bee Hive was a design decision to encourage (force) you to use Apiaries, which require seed oil without PfF. With PfF, you can use Creosote Oil. And, of course, you can't automate Bee Hives, not with simple pipes/ducts/buses at least. *Maybe* a Turtle can do it, but I haven't seen one yet. Bee Hives also don't support frames.

However, Bee Hives do have some benefits over Apiaries, such as faster tree pollination. And, if you're trying to cross-breed traits, but trying to avoid the new species that's possible, you can use Bee Hives.

 

[MigukNamja]

I have been pumping her full of Wintry Drones, just to be rid of them in a productive way.

I have a similar problem, but it's usually Wintry Princesses rather than drones, since the Wintry hives are so easy to find/see and they seem to have a high rate of Pristine to Ignoble, unlike Forest and Meadows, which seem to have a low Pristine % . Hence, I end up with tons of Pristine Wintry Princesses that I'd like to convert to something more usable.

I either:

A) Try to turn them into Meadows or Forest by starting them off in a snowy biome, then move to warmer biome when they become Meadows or Forest dominant (primary)

B) Wait until I have ExtraBees machines up and Inoculator-overwrite their temperature and humidity tolerance.

I could also try to acclimate them using the Acclimatiser, but that's too much time and effort for each princess. I could also mess the Alveary Fan module, but that's also too much work. Easier to just dump them all into an Inoculator with Temp and Humid serums.