Tracking down Meadows and Forest Bees

[Servillo]

So I'm playing on the DW20 pack, and I'm starting to get into bee breeding. I've started following generikb's tutorials, and one thing I know from following them is I'll need a lot of princesses. The problem is that the bees he's suggested I'll need the most, Meadows, Forest, and Tropical, are the ones I've found the least of.

Part of it is terrain generation. There are an absolute crapton of icy biomes around, meaning I get a lot of Wintery bees, and Marbled hives are absolutely everywhere. But even when I find a plains or forest area, I can't find any hives. I dunno if hives other than Wintery and Modest are supposed to glow, but if they do, I don't notice it.

My main worry is how many princesses am I going to need? I spent a good couple of hours just wandering the world, and I only found a handful of Meadows and Forest Hives. And why are Marbled, Wintery, etc. princesses so bad in comparison? Do they just not breed enough drones? I've set up my base on the border between a Glacier and a Forest biome, so I do have some environmental options open.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

If you don't know how many you need yet, then you don't need all that many yet.

Truthfully you only need one of each type, and a fair few of any type. Once you've breed up a few drone stacks - by breeding exactly like princesses with exactly like drones to produce absolutely identical offspring, which can be stacked together - you'll be breeding spare or otherwise unwanted princesses with them over and over until they've also become identical to the drone stacks (discarding any "non-identical" offspring along the way, preferably into a genepool).

In this way, you can convert a wintry princess to, say, a meadows princess. You can also use it to make sure you've got a backup princess of a given species before you try to mutate your current one.

The reason some of the starter princesses are considered more "useful" then others is their potential mutations. Certain species when crossed with other species have the potential to mutate, and give you a third species. The most common mutations you're interested in are considered easiest to get from a meadows/forest cross.

Aim for imperial first, by the way. They give you access to the advanced genetic machines which make all your future beekeeping endeavours far easier.

 

[whizzball1]

If you don't know how many you need yet, then you don't need all that many yet.

Truthfully you only need one of each type, and a fair few of any type. Once you've breed up a few drone stacks - by breeding exactly like princesses with exactly like drones to produce absolutely identical offspring, which can be stacked together - you'll be breeding spare or otherwise unwanted princesses with them over and over until they've also become identical to the drone stacks (discarding any "non-identical" offspring along the way, preferably into a genepool).

In this way, you can convert a wintry princess to, say, a meadows princess. You can also use it to make sure you've got a backup princess of a given species before you try to mutate your current one.

The reason some of the starter princesses are considered more "useful" then others is their potential mutations. Certain species when crossed with other species have the potential to mutate, and give you a third species. The most common mutations you're interested in are considered easiest to get from a meadows/forest cross.

Aim for imperial first, by the way. They give you access to the advanced genetic machines which make all your future beekeeping endeavours far easier.

Actually, you need both Pollen and Royal Jelly for Serums.
Imperial and Industrious you shall need.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Unless the recipe has changed with some recent update I've missed, serums do not require pollen. Alvearies do require both that and royal jelly, though - you may be thinking of them, and industrious bees are indeed your next stop after imperial.

 

[snooder]

My main worry is how many princesses am I going to need? I spent a good couple of hours just wandering the world, and I only found a handful of Meadows and Forest Hives. And why are Marbled, Wintery, etc. princesses so bad in comparison? Do they just not breed enough drones? I've set up my base on the border between a Glacier and a Forest biome, so I do have some environmental options open.

Wintry bees actually have max fertility.

The reason people suggest Forest/Meadows is because the industrious branch and the imperial branch of bees, as well as the common and cultivated bees you need to get up to them all require normal humidity and normal temperature. Wintry bees require an icy temperature, so they won't work in the same location that your common and cultivated will. So you'll have to move your apiaries back and forth between the forest and the glacier biome while breeding. That's a pain, and not really worth the effort, compared to just staying in the forest biome and using forest/meadows bees. There are other benefits, like Meadows/Forest needing flowers instead of mushrooms/vines/lilypads, and producing 2 drones instead of just 1.

If you are having trouble finding hives, go exploring at night. The glow is a lot more visible then.

 

[baw179]

So I'm playing on the DW20 pack, and I'm starting to get into bee breeding. I've started following generikb's tutorials, and one thing I know from following them is I'll need a lot of princesses. The problem is that the bees he's suggested I'll need the most, Meadows, Forest, and Tropical, are the ones I've found the least of.

Part of it is terrain generation. There are an absolute crapton of icy biomes around, meaning I get a lot of Wintery bees, and Marbled hives are absolutely everywhere. But even when I find a plains or forest area, I can't find any hives. I dunno if hives other than Wintery and Modest are supposed to glow, but if they do, I don't notice it.

My main worry is how many princesses am I going to need? I spent a good couple of hours just wandering the world, and I only found a handful of Meadows and Forest Hives. And why are Marbled, Wintery, etc. princesses so bad in comparison? Do they just not breed enough drones? I've set up my base on the border between a Glacier and a Forest biome, so I do have some environmental options open.

I'm a few weeks into bees so I can relate to the above. As snoder says, it's well worth going bee hunting at night as the hives usually give off light (not always, so don't rely on it). Meadows hives are on the ground in wooded areas and imho are really easy to find. I had no issues finding loads of those just from wandering through wooded areas. Forest hives are attached to the underside of tree canopies and were a bit more tricky to find when I was hunting them, but still pretty easy . Tropical hives are attached to the underside of jungle tree canopies and are often very high up. Walking through jungles at night time is the best way to find these if you don't have any flight mods to survey the area from above at night.