Question on bees

[Tyken132]

I've learned quite a bit about bees so far but one thing still confuses me, Bee traits.

According to one of guides I was looking up, Arid bees had a unique feature of requiring no plants or flowers in order to do their work, yet the arid bees I have require one of the parents flowers (cacti or flowers), same for relic bees having the longest life but mine not having them.

In short, how do I get those traits to appear in my bees?

 

[DarkJDL]

Let's see if I can explain this right; Bees have two traits categories, Active and passive That means, four, Active drone, passive drone, active princess, passive princess. So let's say you have a drone with elongated life as active, and shortest as passive, and a princess with normal life as active and shortest as passive, and you combine them together; the queen will have the same exact traits as the princess. BUT the offsprings will have 1/4 chance to have elongated life as active, 2/4 chance to have shortest as active and 1/4 chance to have normal as active... re-run the maths with the same numbers for "passive" that means you actually have a very low chance to have a pure elongated-elongated life.

That is the basic for every traits;

Now if you want to "upgrade" your princess; let's say you have a princess with shortest-short lifespan, you will want to breed her with drones with (ideally) the same traits, except for lifespan, which would have what you want on both active and passive traits.
---Take note that this can be a frustrating process and that the extra bees machine DO makes this a TON easier...and by a ton I mean you have no idea.
There is no real way to "predict" if you will be lucky or not, trying again and again makes your chance come more often.

I hope this helped you.

 

[Tyken132]

Hmm, that kind of helps but the problem is, none of the bees I bred even had the desired traits to begin with. How do I get those traits to even show up?

 

[ex13]

Let's see if I can explain this right; Bees have two traits categories, Active and passive That means, four, Active drone, passive drone, active princess, passive princess. So let's say you have a drone with elongated life as active, and shortest as passive, and a princess with normal life as active and shortest as passive, and you combine them together; the queen will have the same exact traits as the princess. BUT the offsprings will have 1/4 chance to have elongated life as active, 2/4 chance to have shortest as active and 1/4 chance to have normal as active... re-run the maths with the same numbers for "passive" that means you actually have a very low chance to have a pure elongated-elongated life.

Thats nearly right. However, any offspring will have one trait from the princess, one trait from the drone (which one is active and which one inactive is random). So while your probabiities are right for active and inactive, they are not independant ... you will never get a bee with elongated/elongated life from an elongated/shortest princess and a normal/shortest drone.

Hmm, that kind of helps but the problem is, none of the bees I bred even had the desired traits to begin with. How do I get those traits to even show up?

Usually you don't get pure mutations, but hybrid ones. I.e. from meadows/modest, you probably got arid/meadows or arid/modest. Each of those has the trait "no flowers" only as active or inactive, but not both. Similarly to how you selectively breed your bees to get a pure arid bees, you also have to choose the offspring right to get "no flowers" trait purely - the mechanics are the same. In your case, while you bred your arid bees, the "no flowers" trait was simply lost. Which can happen (and again, if you choose your bees badly, you may also loose newly acquired species like arid in the same way).

So try again: Whenever a new mutation occurs, the mutated bee will have the new trait as either active or inactive. If you ever get a pure mutation (bee mutated on both active and inactive at the same time), the new traits will also be pure.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Say you have a primeval and prehistoric bee (I think those are the two that go together to make relic; bear with me if I'm off). You breed them together and they mutate to give you a relic bee.

Or rather, what you actually get is princess and a set of drones, any of which may have the traits of the parents potentially combined with the traits of the new species. That is to say, the "longest life" trait may get overridden by whatever trait the parents had.

When this happens, there's nothing for it but to keep mutating. If the princess happens to go over to the new species before you get the trait you want, start breeding it with the old drones again until it reverts, then mutate again.

Best way to go is to have your genetic machines keeping all your breeding specimens at maximum fertility. Sure, they'll lose it when they mutate, but you'll get more mutated drones faster, meaning more chances of getting the desired traits in serum form before the isolator kills them

Keep in mind you should be beealysing every drone that comes out of your mutation attempts. A drone that, at a glance, is not of the new species, may actually have the new species as an inactive trait - along with the new trait you're after (eg lifespan) as an active or inactive trait. In which case it's perfect for the isolator, which can produce serums from either active or inactive traits.

 

[ex13]

That is to say, the "longest life" trait may get overridden by whatever trait the parents had. [..] If the princess happens to go over to the new species before you get the trait you want, ...

No, this wont happen. Whenever you have a mutation, for each genome either the active or inactive trait will get overridden by the default trait of the newly mutated species (longest in your example, "no flowers" for OPs example). Thus, you will get the new species and the new trait always at exactly the same time. If you don't breed your bees wisely or just have bad luck, the new trait might of course vanish in the next breeding cycle, but it will always be there right when the mutation occurs.

Otherwise, your tips are absolutely right. Highest fertility definitely helps, and analyzing every bee is definitely a must. And even if you really have bad luck and your trait is lost, you can always start over.

 

[Bibble]

Ok, in case your brain isn't overloaded enough:

When a mutation occurs, on either the active or inactive side, ALL traits on that side are reset to the defaults for that mutation.

So, if you have a forest-common hybrid that has a purely slow speed, and get a cultivated mutation on the inactive side, then the bee will have an inactive trait of fast production.

If you look at the bee wikis and info sites, it does tell you which species have which traits as a default.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

I believe ex13 is correct in stating I'm mistaken in saying new traits may not appear at all on mutated drones, but I'm fairly sure Bibble's off in that I'm sure I've seen bees appear with a combination of active and inactive traits from a new mutation.

Or maybe my head's just completely muxed tonight.

 

[Tyken132]

I think I get it now, its a new trait that appears with the mutation and I kinda screwed it up. Fixed(or rather, fixing) it now!

 

[Hydra]

Rocky bees have rock pollination and are very easy to get and rock pollination is basically the same. It just needs 'some kind of stone' nearby (stone bricks seem to work). So that might be a nice alternative because the extrabees machines give you serums you can inoculate your other bees with.

 

[MilConDoin]

Ok, in case your brain isn't overloaded enough:

When a mutation occurs, on either the active or inactive side, ALL traits on that side are reset to the defaults for that mutation.

So, if you have a forest-common hybrid that has a purely slow speed, and get a cultivated mutation on the inactive side, then the bee will have an inactive trait of fast production.

If you look at the bee wikis and info sites, it does tell you which species have which traits as a default.

This isn't 100% correct. The new traits from the Cultivated Bee will be spread randomly on the active or inactive side. If your princess had speed A/B, the drone had C/D and the newly mutated species gives speed E, then the speed traits of the hybrid drones with the new mutation will be one of: A/E B/E C/E D/E E/D E/C E/B E/A. It is irrelevant, if the new species is the active or inactive one.

 

[Bibble]

This isn't 100% correct. The new traits from the Cultivated Bee will be spread randomly on the active or inactive side. If your princess had speed A/B, the drone had C/D and the newly mutated species gives speed E, then the speed traits of the hybrid drones with the new mutation will be one of: A/E B/E C/E D/E E/D E/C E/B E/A. It is irrelevant, if the new species is the active or inactive one.

Really? That's not been my experience. The way I've seen it has been that the mutation will override whichever side it occurs on.

 

[Maldroth]

Really? That's not been my experience. The way I've seen it has been that the mutation will override whichever side it occurs on.

MilConDion is correct it is random. I have seen this happen when trying to breed some Heroic bees. The Heroic trait showed up on the Valiant side of my hybrid and not the Heroic side when the mutation happened.

 

[ThemsAllTook]

It sometimes takes a few tries to get what you want. Even after getting a mutation and purifying it, you might have to do it a second or third time to preserve all of the species's default traits. I had the same problem with Arid bees and non-pollination...if you lose a trait you're going for, you just have to try again with the same two ancestor species to produce some pristine bees that have what you need.

In fact, do this enough times and you can get an isolator to do the job for you without ever manually purifying your new bee breed. Suppose you're going for Arid, and your attempts have produced a bunch of Meadows-Arid and/or Modest-Arid drones. Instead of putting these together with a Meadows/Modest princess, you could put them in an isolator and have a decent chance of getting Arid species and Non-pollination serums. Once I have about 5 drones of the target type, I do this and almost always get what I'm going for. You do run the risk of destroying your drones and not getting the right stuff, but the same goes for breeding them.