Help with oil production using bees (Mindcrack 8.3.2)

[LittleMike]

Hello all,

Just a quick question regarding automating a set up using bees to produce oil and/or biofuel. I have bred Refined bees and I'm using Alvearies along with frames to get oily and petroleum propolis. Because I like the apiarist pipe, I've been doing this with BC pipes, but it is a huge pain. I'm also manually refilling frames, but that's another story.

My question is - when you squeeze the oily propolis, sometimes you get a regular propolis. How on earth do you pull that out of the squeezer? I tried a BC pipe with an autarchic gate, but it ignores it. Am I missing something? Does it have to be on a specific side (I had it connected to the back of the squeezer?)

Also, would I be better off not using BC pipes and going with a different system like Factorization? I saw a little tour GenerikB did of thejims set up and it looked amazing! I am considering going that route, but one step at a time. Unless there's a better way (as in more efficient and compact) of doing it. Ideally I'm trying to pump the fuel into a tank for use in a 36HP liquid boiler, more if the bees will swing it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[PoisonWolf]

Use routers for stuff like the propolis.

Quickly get into routers, and you can do massive chaining of alvearies (of the same identical bee type) and only need 3 routers to control them all.

 

[Golrith]

I've always pumped items into the top of the squeezer, and any item output from the right side of the squeezer. Liquids from front or back, power from underneath.

 

[LittleMike]

Use routers for stuff like the propolis.

Quickly get into routers, and you can do massive chaining of alvearies (of the same identical bee type) and only need 3 routers to control them all.

Why 3? I'm a total Factorization noob and never used a router before.

I've always pumped items into the top of the squeezer, and any item output from the right side of the squeezer. Liquids from front or back, power from underneath.

You can pull the random propolis out from the right side?

 

[Golrith]

You can pull the random propolis out from the right side?

Yep. Here's a screenshot that I use for apples, and occasionally water propolis

 

[LittleMike]

Yep. Here's a screenshot that I use for apples, and occasionally water propolis

View attachment 6341

That must be why it wasn't working for me, because I was trying to pull them out of the back. I have all my squeezers side to side. I guess I'll have to spread them out, or like PoisonWolf said, and change it up for a router system.

 

[MilConDoin]

That must be why it wasn't working for me, because I was trying to pull them out of the back. I have all my squeezers side to side. I guess I'll have to spread them out, or like PoisonWolf said, and change it up for a router system.

I think the Omniwrench can rotate the squeezer, so that the former back will now be the side.

 

[LittleMike]

I think the Omniwrench can rotate the squeezer, so that the former back will now be the side.

No luck. Tried the omni wrench, the screwdriver, the electric wrench, and crescent hammer, and none of them would rotate it. I'll just have to break and replace, I guess.

 

[LittleMike]

Okay, so I think I finally got it. It is NOT compact, though, so I may wind up switching over to a router system anyway. Right now I'm voiding honey drops and regular propolis:

Spoiler

Diamond pipes route the petroleum comb to the right side centrifuge and petroleum propolis to the right squeezer. The diamond pipes route the oily products to any of the other 3 centrifuges/squeezers because I produce more of them. Iron pipes make sure the regular propolis route to the void pipe.

Seems to be working, it's just a big set up. Thanks for the help, all!

 

[PoisonWolf]

Why 3? I'm a total Factorization noob and never used a router before.


You can pull the random propolis out from the right side?

So this is how it works. With three routers, you can scale the alvearies/apiaries to however many you want.

So say you're going to alveary route, with a 25 alveary production line, in a 5x5 setup. You make your alvearies and separate them by one block. Connect your alvearies with anything that has an inventory (e.g., furnace). This networks them altogether.

So now, you want to setup the router system. The three routers have these functions.

Router A: Extract the all the items on the right field of the alveary. So this means that it'll pull the princesses, drones, and combs.
Router B: This router reinserts drones into the alvearies. You want to set it to insert to slot 1. And you want it to have a machine filter upgrade, at the very least, with the setting set to tile.alveary only. You DO NOT want the bandwidth upgrade for this router. You want the drones to disperse equally across the alvearies. At best, get a speed boost upgrade.
Router C: This router reinserts princesses into the alvearies. For router C, you set it to slot 0. Repeat with machine filter upgrade. Optional: Speed boost upgrade.

Use an apiarist pipe to connect all the routers, and set the configurations as necessary. After router C, you output the remains to wherever you want. You'l have plenty of left over drones as a result of your farm, all of which can be sent to recyclers.

Now, because your farm is pretty big, you'll notice that there is a delay with how fast the princesses gets reinserted into alvearies. This sometimes results in a princesses just passing router C altogether because there is no spot in the router (i.e., princesses can't stack). To circumvent this issue, you loop princesses back into router C so they never escape the system. This allows you to theoretically, expand your alveary farm to be as large as you want, without fear of bandwidth delay, but it is ultimately limited by the number of objects that can be traveling in any single buildcraft pipe (i.e., default is set to 100 items in a single pipe, at any given time, if I am not mistaken).

Lastly, you can also have router D (which is not connected to the three routers above), which is iinserts frames (if you have alveary frame blocks). Again, you'll need a machine filter upgrade to restrict to frame blocks.

If these instructions are difficult to follow, let me know. Give it a shot first, because I believe the fun in learning is by doing! If you are getting confused, I'll post a picture of my setup. This technique is only if you're building a bee farm for the same comb. The bees need to be identical, etc.

This method has provided me with endless amounts of iridium..................which is why I love bees to death. They are alternative to people who don't like caving, etc (I hate caving cause it creeps me out to go into the dark).

P.S. If your "connecting" blocks are apiaries, you can have another set of Router A, B, and Cs, to manage the apiaries as well. This maximizes the number of princesses you can have within a given space (but know that apiaries are horrible and have large CPU overhead if you're going to make a bazillion of them).

 

[LittleMike]

So this is how it works. With three routers, you can scale the alvearies/apiaries to however many you want.

So say you're going to alveary route, with a 25 alveary production line, in a 5x5 setup. You make your alvearies and separate them by one block. Connect your alvearies with anything that has an inventory (e.g., furnace). This networks them altogether.

So now, you want to setup the router system. The three routers have these functions.

Router A: Extract the all the items on the right field of the alveary. So this means that it'll pull the princesses, drones, and combs.
Router B: This router reinserts drones into the alvearies. You want to set it to insert to slot 1. And you want it to have a machine filter upgrade, at the very least, with the setting set to tile.alveary only. You DO NOT want the bandwidth upgrade for this router. You want the drones to disperse equally across the alvearies. At best, get a speed boost upgrade.
Router C: This router reinserts princesses into the alvearies. For router C, you set it to slot 0. Repeat with machine filter upgrade. Optional: Speed boost upgrade.

Use an apiarist pipe to connect all the routers, and set the configurations as necessary. After router C, you output the remains to wherever you want. You'l have plenty of left over drones as a result of your farm, all of which can be sent to recyclers.

Now, because your farm is pretty big, you'll notice that there is a delay with how fast the princesses gets reinserted into alvearies. This sometimes results in a princesses just passing router C altogether because there is no spot in the router (i.e., princesses can't stack). To circumvent this issue, you loop princesses back into router C so they never escape the system. This allows you to theoretically, expand your alveary farm to be as large as you want, without fear of bandwidth delay, but it is ultimately limited by the number of objects that can be traveling in any single buildcraft pipe (i.e., default is set to 100 items in a single pipe, at any given time, if I am not mistaken).

Lastly, you can also have router D (which is not connected to the three routers above), which is iinserts frames (if you have alveary frame blocks). Again, you'll need a machine filter upgrade to restrict to frame blocks.

If these instructions are difficult to follow, let me know. Give it a shot first, because I believe the fun in learning is by doing! If you are getting confused, I'll post a picture of my setup. This technique is only if you're building a bee farm for the same comb. The bees need to be identical, etc.

This method has provided me with endless amounts of iridium..................which is why I love bees to death. They are alternative to people who don't like caving, etc (I hate caving cause it creeps me out to go into the dark).

P.S. If your "connecting" blocks are apiaries, you can have another set of Router A, B, and Cs, to manage the apiaries as well. This maximizes the number of princesses you can have within a given space (but know that apiaries are horrible and have large CPU overhead if you're going to make a bazillion of them).

I'm a little confused about the apiarist pipe part. Why do you need that at all if you can just put the routers right next to each other. In thejims video, from what I could tell, he had 4 routers. 3 were connected and one was set apart. Not sure how he has everything set up, though, because he hasn't put a video up on it. I've only seen what GenerikB showed in his video.

Related question - Right now I have 8 combustion engines with 2 aqueous accumulators keeping them cool. This is powering 4 stills, 4 centrifuges, and 4 squeezers. The stills seem to be operating at max speed (the block is blue/green on the side) but the tank does not seem to be filling up with fuel very quickly. It's about 30 mB/s or so. Like it takes 3 seconds or so for every 100mB. Is that normal? Can I add more stills? I'm concerned it won't be able to keep up with even a single 36HP boiler at that rate. Aren't they supposed to handle 1.1 boilers per 3?

Oh, the video is here by the way:

He has 16 Alvearies all with Distilled bees in them (I use Refined and have 1 of the centrifuge/squeezer processing the petroleum products as I said earlier). Being that you're more familiar with Factorization than I am, maybe the setup will make more sense. I love the idea of connecting the network via barrels because a) they're cheap to make, and b) they look nice as well, though furnaces are a good idea too. Anything with an inventory will work, correct?

 

[LittleMike]

By the way...

Spoiler

The Refineries never go past blue green. I even disconnected them from the combustion engines and hooked up a REC at 100MJ/t and they STILL never went to green/green. On one of the wikis I read, it said blue/green is second fastest and green/green is fastest. If I'm putting out 100MJ/t and it's still not green green, what does it top out at?

 

[PoisonWolf]

I'm a little confused about the apiarist pipe part. Why do you need that at all if you can just put the routers right next to each other. In thejims video, from what I could tell, he had 4 routers. 3 were connected and one was set apart. Not sure how he has everything set up, though, because he hasn't put a video up on it. I've only seen what GenerikB showed in his video.

Okay....here is my setup...in pictures. Hopefully it helps you. Sorry, I don't have any fraps, etc, related software to show it to you in video. So these screenshots will have to do.

This is how I connect a humble 3x3 alveary setup. We're going to be focusing on where the cross-hair is.



Next, I'll show you how the products are piped across my floors, which are done through ender chests.



Here is the setup I was telling you about. Starting with the router where my crosshair is at, that's router A, followed by B, and lastly, C. The standalone router on the left is where I put frames...whenever I need a boost in production.



This is Router A's configuration. It is pulled out by an autarchic gate.



This is the apiarist pipe below router B. The router is set to insert to slot 1.



This is the apiarist pipe below router C. The router is set to insert to slot 0.



This is the princess loop I was telling you about.



For the princess loop's apiarist pipe, you just set it in the direction of your loop, and use anything for everything else.



I hope this helps you in your endeavor. So to answer your question, items are being pulled out from router A, and being pulsed along via the autarchic gate. The apiarist pipes are needed under router B and C, because that's how you direct the drones and princesses into the respective routers for insertion.

Do not use diamond pipes for handling bees. They are glitchy and unreliable.

 

[LittleMike]

Okay....here is my setup...in pictures. Hopefully it helps you. Sorry, I don't have any fraps, etc, related software to show it to you in video. So these screenshots will have to do.

This is how I connect a humble 3x3 alveary setup. We're going to be focusing on where the cross-hair is.

View attachment 6354

Next, I'll show you how the products are piped across my floors, which are done through ender chests.

View attachment 6355

Here is the setup I was telling you about. Starting with the router where my crosshair is at, that's router A, followed by B, and lastly, C. The standalone router on the left is where I put frames...whenever I need a boost in production.

View attachment 6356

This is Router A's configuration. It is pulled out by an autarchic gate.

View attachment 6357

This is the apiarist pipe below router B. The router is set to insert to slot 1.

View attachment 6358

This is the apiarist pipe below router C. The router is set to insert to slot 0.

View attachment 6359

This is the princess loop I was telling you about.

View attachment 6361

For the princess loop's apiarist pipe, you just set it in the direction of your loop, and use anything for everything else.

View attachment 6362

I hope this helps you in your endeavor. So to answer your question, items are being pulled out from router A, and being pulsed along via the autarchic gate. The apiarist pipes are needed under router B and C, because that's how you direct the drones and princesses into the respective routers for insertion.

Do not use diamond pipes for handling bees. They are glitchy and unreliable.

Oh I gotcha. You're using the apiarist pipes along with the routers to route the bees *as well as* the products. I took a different approach. I use the apiarist pipe like I would in an apiary - just for princess/drone management and then routing the combs to the processing area:

Spoiler

So my alvearies take care of themselves. The petro and oily combs both go down the golden transport pipes to the squeezer/centrifuge setup:

Spoiler

Hmm... this gives me some ideas. Possibly a combination of both of our setups

 

[PoisonWolf]

Oh I gotcha. You're using the apiarist pipes along with the routers to route the bees *as well as* the products. I took a different approach. I use the apiarist pipe like I would in an apiary - just for princess/drone management and then routing the combs to the processing area:

Spoiler

View attachment 6364

So my alvearies take care of themselves. The petro and oily combs both go down the golden transport pipes to the squeezer/centrifuge setup:

Spoiler

View attachment 6365

Hmm... this gives me some ideas. Possibly a combination of both of our setups

Yes, you can definitely manage alvearies that way, but I find it cumbersome to have so many BC pipes around. I prefer the clean setup of a single 1x6 stretch to manage all the alvearies. Right now, however, I see that you only have 3 alvearies, so it isn't too bad. The piping would be messy when you go up in the 20+ alveary range when trying to produce the same comb (e.g., 20 distilled bees).

If you can, always minimize BC pipe usage, because I find that it is a lot of unnecessary CPU-overhead to calculate the traveling of the item. So I tend to cut the distance short by either using ender chests or item tesseracts.

Have fun with whatever setup you end up doing. Routers are extremely powerful and makes automation so much easier.

 

[LittleMike]

Yes, you can definitely manage alvearies that way, but I find it cumbersome to have so many BC pipes around. I prefer the clean setup of a single 1x6 stretch to manage all the alvearies.

If you can, always minimize BC pipe usage, because I find that it is a lot of unnecessary CPU-overhead to calculate the traveling of the item. So I tend to cut the distance short by either using ender chests or item tesseracts.

Have fun with whatever setup you end up doing. Routers are extremely powerful and makes automation so much easier.

Yea, that's why I asked about routers to begin with. I may keep the short loops on each alveary but then see if I can manage the rest using routers. A testing I will go

 

[PoisonWolf]

Yea, that's why I asked about routers to begin with. I may keep the short loops on each alveary but then see if I can manage the rest using routers. A testing I will go

Routers are good for managing bee farms of the same bees though. You definitely don't want to connect alvearies with different bees. The princesses are going to go to the wrong place, etc.

Use BC pipes for unique princesses. Use routers for large-scale farms of the same bee. Using routers for each individual alveary would be.....very costly. Lol.

If there is a farm you should start with, consider with the rusty bee farm (for iron) or valuable bee (for iridium via platinum combs). If you're low on iron, go with the rusty bee, so that you can make more dark iron for more bootylicious routers!

Have fun and enjoy! Plop a chunkloader down and profit!

 

[LittleMike]

Routers are good for managing bee farms of the same bees though. You definitely don't want to connect alvearies with different bees. The princesses are going to go to the wrong place, etc.

Use BC pipes for unique princesses. Use routers for large-scale farms of the same bee.

If there is a farm you should start with, consider with the rusty bee farm (for iron) or valuable bee (for iridium via platinum combs). If you're low on iron, go with the rusty bee, so that you can make more dark iron for more bootylicious routers!

Have fun and enjoy! Plop a chunkloader down and profit!

Yea, all of those three alvearies are Refined bees for oil production testing I'll keep that in mind, though, when I want to mix and match. Oh, that reminds me, I need to build a craft packet maker and all that to get the wrath igniter to get the dark iron. Damn Gregtech. Haha. Oh well, that's what I get for choosing to play Mindcrack

 

[PoisonWolf]

Yea, all of those three alvearies are Refined bees for oil production testing I'll keep that in mind, though, when I want to mix and match. Oh, that reminds me, I need to build a craft packet maker and all that to get the wrath igniter to get the dark iron. Damn Gregtech. Haha. Oh well, that's what I get for choosing to play Mindcrack

Yeah that's why if it's possible...try to do your first batch with about 64 blocks of iron? That'll get you 4 stacks of dark iron...which should last you a while.
Then you gotta do the annoying ender pearl farming.....and blaze farming (both will be needed for routers, and some of the upgrades).

Then you'll need to start factorization furnaces, to make "logic matrix: identifier(s)". This will then require silver mirrors, solar turbines, and all that good stuff.

So yeah...getting the routers and upgrades initially, was a pain.

 

[LittleMike]

Oh, forgot about the logic matrix programmer. I found two in a chest. I can use them to make more, right? I need to read up on Factorization. And you mean slag furnace, right? Why do I need mirrors and solar turbines and all that other stuff? Oh wait... I need a Crystallizer to get the logic matrix to get the logic matrix identifier to get the machine upgrade. And the Crystallizer requires Charge to run, which means solar turbines, which means mirrors.... okay, so I have a lot of infrastructure I need to set up first. Ugh. Hahaha