Tell me about your bees

[Larmonade]

So I've been slowly grasping the basics (and some not-so-basics) of FTB unleashed for several weeks now. I feel more or less comfortable utilizing most of the mods that I'm interested in, and have a nice little cache of bookmarked wikis, guides, and other resources for all the bits that I'm not so confident about. Except the bees. My god, the bees.

Now part of me would be just as well off Forestry had not included a trace of bees, but it's there, staring me in the face, daring me to understand it. I've watched a handful of YouTube spotlights and such, and I've read a handful of guides about it, and I guess I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with the basics of bees and breeding, but questions remain, so here I go.

1) What does your bee setup look like? I have an idea of what a fledgling bee industry looks like, but what about the folks who are mass-producing bees and getting crazy resources in return? Give me something to aspire to, and, for my purposes, more compact is better.

2) do you folks usually have a stash of all available bees, switching between them as you see fit? Or do people usually settle down for the long haul with a few specific types, cranking out the stuff they've decided on?

3) As I mentioned, I've perused a handful of spotlights and guides on the topic, but have yet to find a comprehensive guide that assumes no foreknowledge on the subject. I'm incredibly dense, and a slow learner to boot. I like direwolf20's videos, but his bees spotlights are kinda spread out over several versions and videos, and most of the other videos I've found are either way too in-depth or only show the very basics. Any good guides or spotlights you folks have used?

 

[vScourge]

I have a smallish "apiculture lab" with the following: Gene Pool w/small attached iron tank for storing liquid DNA, two Acclimatizers (one is enough really), Isolator, Synthesizer, and a Purifier. And a redstone conduit running in that carries LOTS of juice. Near there I have a small room with 8 apiarists chests for storing just a few specimens of each species. I generally don't keep more than a couple queens and one stack of workers for each. I also have two iron chests for storing serums I like (most of them species serums).

For "manufacturing" I have 12 Alviaries connected to the ME network, each (generally) housing six Impregnated Frames, to maximize production. On the back of each Alviary is a ME level emitter and some basic pipes (including an apiarist pipe) to route queens and drones back into it. Produced items are sent to the ME network, and the network also replaces worn out frames with new ones. Several of the alviaries are devoted full-time to producing items required to auto-craft the Impregnated Frames. The rest I swap bees in/out of based on need.

I can post some pics and tips later.

 

[twisto51]

The ExtraBees stuff looks like this:

Spoiler

My production areas vary depending on what is going on. Factory bees are in a dense cube of Alveary with BC/Factorization/AE automation. Pollinators are usually in a couple rows of bee houses. Duplicators are a row of apiaries with BC automation. I have single Alveary all over the place for special crossbreeding requirements, easy Exp farms, thaumcraft node/aura manipulation, etc.

 

[YX33A]

My Bees were a couple Apiaries in a field near a desert and a taiga. Decided to work on getting the important bees quick enough to enjoy them before I had another "accident" on my map. Didn't have a single Royal Jelly or Pollen before I was done. Had accidentally forked off into more advanced Magic Bees then what you can get at first, and the Relic line of bees.

 

[ToLazyToThink]

My Isolator setup: http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/automated-isolator.29888/

I currently have the following bees producing (4 alvearies each):
Monastic
Emerald
Diamond
Refined
Apitine (only 1 alveary)

I also have 4 apiaries of my breeding & production templates. When I need to breed new bees or put new bees into production I take the template and change the species with the Inoculator.

I should probably review my serums, I could probably improve a few of the traits by now.
Breeders:

• Industrious
• Shortest Lifespan
• Fast Speed
• Slowest Pollination
• Rock Flowers
• 4x Fertility
• Effect None
• Temp +- 2
• Humidity +-1

Production:

• Imperial
• Long Lifespan
• Fast Speed
• Slowest Pollination
• Rock Flowers
• 4x Fertility
• Effect None
• Temp +- 2
• Humidity +-1

And finally somewhere out in the wilderness there is an apiary with wintry bee & a chunk loader that's filling an ender chest. I wish I could remember where in the world it's at.

 

[riciJak]

I store my bees inside a ME network cause its not messy and have a search function. I always keep a stack of drone of each species for future breeding.

When I bee breeding my first goal is always to breed ind. bees for tree breeding and pollen. imperial for royal jellies
and
I breed all the bees with the best trait like fastest productivity(aura bee), both 3 temp tolerance (doctoral bee) max fertility and nocturnal. extract those traits and save for later use.


and bee breeding by hand is so boring so I setup a semi automatic breeder just set and afk or do something else. and an alarm will tell me if the new species is born.

 

[triblades]

and an alarm will tell me if the new species is born.

Wait.... what...?


How?

 

[Bibble]

Wait.... what...?


How?

As a rough guess, I'd say something akin to DW20's setup from a while back, hooked up to some computercraft gubbins (fairly sure that there's an alarm block in that, or one of the addons).

My bee setup typically consists of 1-10 apiaries for breeding and refining bees, with a line or two of apiaries for straight production, each of which gets replaced by alvearies when I get around to it. Usually, from each species, I try to get the species serum, and any defining characteristics (i.e. if it works quickly, has an especially short/long life, etc.). Part of my setup is usually built around setting up a number of "imprinter" apiaries, which are basically ones where I take a number (usually 10-16, to be safe) of drones, and put them in a repeating apiary with a scrap princess, which then becomes pure-bred version of the drones. I'll set up a "current ideal", with the best stats I have available, and generate as many princesses as I can with those stats.

Those base princesses can then be innoculated with the species serum of choice (and any special effects, such as rejuvenation or similar), and set to work. This removes the need to "optimise" the bees that I breed directly.

 

[b0bst3r]

Over 100 Alvearys, about 25 apiaries, tons and tons and tons of bees



It all started here

 

[MilConDoin]

For "manufacturing" I have 12 Alviaries connected to the ME network, each (generally) housing six Impregnated Frames, to maximize production.

Are you using MC 1.4.7? If you're on MC 1.5.x or later, the maximum you can boost your bee production without your princesses becoming swarmer bees is x16, achieved with four frames.
If you're on 1.5.x and don't receive swarmer bees, then it is because of the inner workings of the (forestry) frames. If the total production boost exceeds x10, the next frame won't add anything anymore. So x2 -> x4 -> x8 -> x16 -> x16 -> x16. Remove two of your frames and receive the same output as before.

 

[vScourge]

Yeah, I'm still on 1.4.7.
Here's some shots of my bee setup

Outdoor research area

Spoiler

Lab

Spoiler

Cold Storage

Spoiler

Production

Spoiler

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

what's that? hexagonal building with a giant bee on top? yes, yes it is

Spoiler

 

[un worry]

I notice many people are running alvearies without automated frames.

Is this out of personal preference, play style or (in)efficiency?

 

[PoisonWolf]

what's that? hexagonal building with a giant bee on top? yes, yes it is

Spoiler

View attachment 7824

How do you get the bees to pollinate all different colors of flowers? Right now, with the Flower trait, I'm only getting the plain yellow/red flowers and the bluebells aren't multiplying.

 

[Henry Link]

As far as I know it just happens. I haven't done anything special with the bees and I get all sorts of weird flowers.

 

[loboca]

Yeah, I'm still on 1.4.7.

Production

Spoiler

What are those lights in your prod room? Very nice setup btw.

 

[b0bst3r]

I notice many people are running alvearies without automated frames.

Is this out of personal preference, play style or (in)efficiency?

If you're referring to mine in that statement, they are automated alvearys, totally automated, just cos you can't see the pipes and stuff (which are underneath).

 

[vScourge]

What are those lights in your prod room? Very nice setup btw.

Thanks. Those are floodlights from Greg's Lighting mod. We're running a custom modpack that just mostly resembles FTB Ultimate.

 

[riciJak]

Wait.... what...?


How?

Pipes & Gates~!

Spoiler

left side is the breeder where I put 2 different bee to combine .
right side is the purifier where I put the mix princess to make it pure breed

As a rough guess, I'd say something akin to DW20's setup from a while back, hooked up to some computercraft gubbins (fairly sure that there's an alarm block in that, or one of the addons).

and yup alarm.


gonna upgrade the setup soon with alveary and adv apiarist pipe.

 

[Larmonade]

Wow! I've got a lot of learning to do before I can do anything on this kind of scale, but this weekend, I guess I'll fool around in creative to figure out how to manage a set of the multi-block hives for semi-automatic farming and maybe some of the smaller hives for breeding up some crazy bees.

What are some good "goal" bees - I'm mostly interested in bees that might be useful for farming up otherwise finite resources. Bees that give me wheat are not nearly as exciting as bees that give me...like...rare ores or something. I dunno.