I can't do this anymore.

[Dragonchampion]

I have tried, and tried and tried with bees. I managed to get all they way to majestic, only to see it all fall flat in my face. It degenerated to noble, then back to cultivated.

I can't do this anymore. I have wasted DAYS on this bullshit. Can anyone tell me how to spawn in specific bee types? Most specifically, noble bees?

 

[Guswut]

You can use NEI, look up the item ID (NEI does this) and use the give command, or turn on standard creative mode and search for them through there (I believe, I have not verified this). Good luck.

EDiT: Incorrect, evidently. Good luck either way, though!

 

[Abdiel]

Bees work by using NBTtags, not by just item IDs. You can only spawn in the base types (forest, meadows, marshy, ...).

 

[TK_Gamer]

You can use an imprinter. Look it up in NEI

 

[Dragonchampion]

I found a way!

Use NEi, to set yourself in Creative + mode (with the spare inventory) and make sure to have a bee of the kind you want more of. (Of course, this means you have to HAVE the bee first so it's not necessarily a completely imba cheat). Then, take the bee and put it in your extra, creative inventory. Then, while it's in there, middle click the bee to get 64 of that same exact type with the same exact traits. Of course, this requires admin access, but I have it so I'm fine with it.

 

[Futalis]

Bee's are fickle. But I highly recommend if you are having mutation woes to use soul frames. They are eaten up rather quickly but the almost always guarantee a mutation in the lower tier bees.

Frames in general are pretty awesome. But yea I've had some difficulties with certain bees. Emerald bees were a pain for me.

Also cheating is lame

Also, if you have the resources and extra bees, build the genetic machines. (Skip the imprinter, it is bugged atm), and catalog all the bee species you come across into serums so you can rebreed them at a later date.

 

[Dragonchampion]

That was what was so infuriating; I had the bee machines, every one of them. I have over 400 bees, but only a single noble bee. I even had majestic ones! I used that trick to copy my noble drone, and after my third try I finally got Imperial. It was that cotton-pickin noble line that was killing me!

 

[Mero]

It's really not too bad. The key is to analyze both the princess and the done before you breed them.
Once you get a pure princess and done of the type you are working on, auto breed them to make tons of pure drones.
You can then use those pure drones to turn other princesses into pures of that type.

Rinse and repeat for each mutation.

 

[Dragonchampion]

But Nobles wouldn't "stay" nobles. They would always degenerate for me. The princess would become cultivated or common.

 

[fyj]

If you want to cheat your way there, just use a mutator in an alveary and feed it nether stars - 100% guaranteed mutation every time.

That said - what you really need to do is each time you find a new bee type make sure you solidify your position before trying to move on - get a purebred princess & drone, then breed them a few dozen times and get yourself like 20+ drones from it and stick those in a chest somewhere safe. I find pretty convincingly if I take 8 drones of 1 type and breed them with any princess (Breed repeatedly till all 8 drones are used) I'll have a princess of that type, so if you have 20 drones, you've guaranteed yourself the ability to go back to that bee type at any point (Which will come in handy often as they're typically not just for 1 mutation).

 

[DoctorOr]

But Nobles wouldn't "stay" nobles. They would always degenerate for me. The princess would become cultivated or common.

Use a beealyzer. Breed only to re-inforce the breed you want. Throw away drones that don't have at least half the breed you want.

Just by doing that you will _always_ get a full blooded breed, once you get the mutation at all. It's not even luck. The only variable is time, and it will happen in under ten generations. Guaranteed.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Bees degenerating?
Either you've set the config to hard mode,
or you just need to bee a little more careful with your breeding.

-Generally take it one step at a time, and aim to create a pure-bred of each stage before moving on to the next one.​

This'll give you a few extra drones to fall back on- or clone* with​

-Try to add recessive drone to dominant princesses, there's more control over what happens.​

-Likewise add your rare drones to more plentiful princesses- so you wont risk a rare species.​

​

*Cloning is a cheap way of getting yourself another princess- just set up a cheap princess (modest is ideal, but any wild/easy bee will work), and flood her apairy with drones of the type you want. It'll take a few generations, but you'll have a second princess of a newer/rare type.

 

[Luckdemon]

Just to be clear here, there IS a way to get bees without any breeding whatsoever. Yes, it is completely cheating. Forestry adds commands to the game, if i remember correctly they are /giveprincess /givequeen and /givedrone. Now you need to know what the name of the bee you want is though. Usage would be something like: /givedrone Forest

 

[Mero]

But Nobles wouldn't "stay" nobles. They would always degenerate for me. The princess would become cultivated or common.

That's why you always analyze before you breed. You have to make sure the hybrids of both princess and done aren't the same. That greatly lessens the chance of that type being produced. You always have to pay close attention when you aren't working with two purees.

 

[ThemsAllTook]

That said - what you really need to do is each time you find a new bee type make sure you solidify your position before trying to move on - get a purebred princess & drone, then breed them a few dozen times and get yourself like 20+ drones from it and stick those in a chest somewhere safe.

That's the way I do it. Once I get a new breed of princess, I keep breeding it with its own kind of drones until it gets purified and produces the exact same drones every time. I then keep that princess around for drone production, and by continuously breeding its drones with any other princess, I can turn her into the same type as my original. Only after I have two stable pure princesses do I try to breed one with something else to get a new breed. If I don't get what I want, I can always re-purify with my stable drone supply before trying again.

 

[Dragonchampion]

Just to be clear here, there IS a way to get bees without any breeding whatsoever. Yes, it is completely cheating. Forestry adds commands to the game, if i remember correctly they are /giveprincess /givequeen and /givedrone. Now you need to know what the name of the bee you want is though. Usage would be something like: /givedrone Forest

The trouble with those commands is it only gives the basic bees. I needed Noble, which, I heard from a friend is a recessive bloodline. Urgh.

Also, why is all this information just coming to me NOW? Everyone seems to be so helpful. I seach and search for guides yet it seems the best resource is these forums.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

Also, why is all this information just coming to me NOW?

You just asked. Yeah, the wikis aren't all that helpful, primarily (I think) because the experimentation is a big part of the fun.
You're not even to the hard part. My buddy had his genetically-modified bees and their resulting mutations go all Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie on him and some of his Apiaries ended up spawning Creepers and/or Skeletons. We have no idea how that strain happened.

 

[Dragonchampion]

Oh crap, I hope my purebred imperials with fast active and fast passive speed, and elongated/elongated life don't do that. But their genetics says that the only thing that'll happen is the Beautific, which gives a 3 second regen buff. 3 million MJ to genetically modify my bees, but it was so totally worth it.

 

[Setari]

I just put bees in apiaries and see what I get. I got nobles in no time, though their bloodline is probably horrific. Also I probably have a ton... like 2 regular large chests full of normal meadow bees that are trash... I found a steadfast bee in a cave dungeon so I was using that too.

 

[Hydra]

But Nobles wouldn't "stay" nobles. They would always degenerate for me. The princess would become cultivated or common.

Bee's don't just degenerate. You have to have a basic understanding of genetics to understand what's happening. You also ABSOLUTELY need the beealyzer. You really don't need any of the machines to get industrious and imperial bees, it just makes getting traits like "fast" and "nocturnal" into those bees easier.

You ahve to keep in mind that if you breed two bees that don't have the same 4 race traits in them (2 for the princess and two for the drone) that there's a chance that the resulting princess has any combination of the race genes. The same goes for the drones that you get out of it.

So a simple example: let's say you breed a "cultivated-cultivated" princess with a "common-common" drone. There's a number of things that can happen. First of all, there could be no mutation at all. This will result in the bees you get out of it (1 princess and 2-4 drones) to either be a "cultivated-cultivated" (pure cultivated), "cultivated-common" (cultivated-common hybrid), "common-cultivated" (common-cultivated hybrid) or "common-common" (pure common) princess/drone. Basically for each of those combinations you have a 25% chance. And every resulting bee is random.

What can also happen because a cultivated princess + common drone can result in a mutation is that you get a mutation in the genome. This means that one of the "race" genomes in the resulting drones be either "noble" or "diligent".

So let's say that the result is:
1 princess: "common-noble"
1 drone: "common-noble"
1 drone: "cultivated-common"

Unless you analyse the princess and drones you dont' see the exact traits. If you now breed the princess (common-noble) together with the drone (common-noble) you have a a 50% chance that the resulting princess will have atleast 1 "noble" trait and about 25% (IIRC) that it's a "noble-noble" princess. The same for the resulting drones.

So basically for every race of bee you first try to cause the mutation, and then you purify that strain be selecting the drones that give the highest chance of the resulting princess and drones to be "pure" (noble-noble). Since if you breed with 2 pure bees (a noble-noble princess and a noble-noble drone) you will ALWAYS get a pure bee back. Bees never spontaniously degenerate, you were simply breeding hybrids.

Make sure you understand how this works. If you don't you'll simply be wasting your time. The first few upgrades (mundane > common > cultivated) you can do by just guessing based on the bee color but after that there will be so many hybrids that you'll slow down too much.