Please help improve my very basic setup

[Servillo]

So I made a quick and dirty setup to help me get drones while I'm AFK from my server. It's exceedingly basic, and I'm sure it can be better. However, I have no experience with BC, and haven't made anything from it yet other than these pipes (some I know I'm obviously going to have to fix soon).

This is the setup I used for my Meadows bees. It only got me about 40 drones before the drones went to the chest instead of the apiary. I'm hoping that was just random luck. The diamond pipe is set up to send drones and princesses to the apiary, and drones and combs to the chest.

http://i.imgur.com/4winh9C.png


This is my Forest bees setup. I didn't really think about pipe orientation when I made these, so if it's important, please let me know. This managed to produce two stacks of drones for me overnight. Diamond pipe setup was the same.

http://i.imgur.com/jBvTWI6.png

The setup works okay, but I know it can be better. I can't make apiarists pipes yet, but I will as soon as I can if they're needed. I also don't plan on using this setup when I start the breeding chains; this is for drone breeding purposes only, so that I can get a good number for getting princesses to the right type if necessary. I intend to get purebreds of a princess and drone of whatever I'm breeding, run them through this setup for a while so that I can get a stack or so of pure drones, and then continue the breeding process.

So yeah, anything I can do to improve on this, please let me know. Also, does the number of flowers surrounding an apiary/alveary affect the production rate of combs? If so, I obviously need to go out and get a lot more.

 

[Harros]

Flowers are there for the bees to live and pollinate they don't affect the rate of combs or special products. The production rate is calculated by the speed trait in the bees genes for example a bee with slowest speed for its trait won't produce a lot of combs while a bee with fast for its trait will produce a lot of combs and special products.

 

[Servillo]

All these topic views and no one has any suggestions? >.>

 

[TangentialThreat]

You're doing it mostly right. The pipes can be more compact though; wood, any transport to round the corner, then diamond/apiarist. Upgrade to apiarist soon.

Something like this is invaluable for "cloning" princesses. Set a bunch of drones with the right traits in the drone slot and it will automatically breed her with that line of bees over and over until she's identical to them.

Next thing you need is frames. Chocolate frames for shortening life, soul frames for increased chance of mutation and slightly shorter life, and a lot of seed oil to make all the impregnated sticks.

After that you can start grinding your way towards imperial and industrious bees, the alveary and some genetic engineering equipment, and wherever you want to go after that.

 

[Servillo]

Yeah, I've already been using chocolate frames. I need to get a few jungle trees set up for cocoa been farming, but that's soon in the works. Soul frames I know about as well, and I should be starting breeding for Commons tonight.

I'm curious, what advantages does the apiarist pipe have over the diamond? And is there any way to guarantee a drone will go into the apiary before the extras go into a chest?

 

[TangentialThreat]

Send any bees into the apiary and anything into chest. It'll make sense when you see the GUI.

 

[Silent_007]

And is there any way to guarantee a drone will go into the apiary before the extras go into a chest?

Yes, if you do what William suggested. But for that to work, you need to make sure that the apiarist pipe itself is adjacent to the apiary. If there are other pipes in between, the drones will get dropped if they don't fit. But since the apiarist pipe is intelligent, it will prioritize the drones to the "any bee" direction, and then if they don't fit it will reroute them to a less-specific but still valid option - in this case, "anything".