Bee Husbandry

[Sidewinder7]

So the topic of Bee Husbandry has been raised and I thought it would be a good idea to create a discussion thread for it.

Given that the extent of ideas for implementing bee husbandry so far have mostly been "Hey, lets add bee husbandry!", I've created a list of primary questions to help focus things down.

This isn't a multiple choice quiz, and I certainly don't want/need/expect line-by-line answers, these questions are just to draw attention to key points that need to be decided on.

Any suggestions, requests, demands, discussions, and it'd-be-cool-ifs are welcome!

What should the purpose of engaging with the system be?

• Is beekeeping now essential to the optimal running of hydroponics?
  
• Is beekeeping just a fun/mildly productive way to pass time?
  

What is the end product of engaging with the beekeeping system?

• Can special bees be used to improve plant growth?
  
• Help produce valuable chemicals?
  
• Produce high value saleable honeycomb for the QM?
  
• Is it all just to create a swarm of multi-color bees that follow you around as pets?
  

What should the scope of the system be?

• Massive, with a huge variety of bee types and game-spanning implementation?
  
• Focused, with a set of possible results pertaining to an existing system (probably botany)?
  
• Limited, with a small set of interesting and varied results?
  

How accessible should the system be?

• Should beekeeping equipment be a standard part of hydroponics?
  
• Are bee-vats a proprietary technology that needs to be salvaged from the debris field?
  

What time investment is required to engage with the system?

• Should beekeeping be a round-long activity?
  
• A one-off activity that can be done whenever?
  

What level of randomness is involved?

• No randomness, like chemistry, with a set list of actions/results
  
• Old Patho levels of ?
  

What level of nerdistry is required/allowed?

• Can the system be effectively utilized by following a strict set of instructions? (basic chemistry)
  
• Is the system open-ended, with interesting results requiring interesting implementations? (mechcomp/dwaine)
  

[kyle2143]

Add bee husbandry.

[Wisecrack34]

Everyone needs a Sugar Daddy

[Frank_Stein]

Give Bees stats that are inheritable genetically so you can breed show bees, work bees, or companion bees

[warcrimes]

bees are not allowed to fuck, its in our contract

[Sidewinder7]

bees are not allowed to fuck, its in our contract

On top of that, I say we make a point of treating the bees with respect. Not like genetics irradiating monkeys for profit.

[Frank_Stein]

I think you'd just have like, the Bees eat a lot of pollen, then make honey. The honey carries their DNA. You mix two different bee's honey and you get a fresh bee egg that inherits the traits of it's parents.

And hey, maybe that bee honey has other specific culinary uses. Maybe it gives people boosts when consumed depending on the dominant traits.

[Wisecrack34]

I think you'd just have like, the Bees eat a lot of pollen, then make honey. The honey carries their DNA. You mix two different bee's honey and you get a fresh bee egg that inherits the traits of it's parents.

I'd prefer it if you slathered an egg with it instead, so eating honey doesn't feel like killing potential bees

[Katzen]

It should be a side job of botany to give them an alternative to plants, I feel like we have too many botanist job slots for the amount of work available.

How do we control the number of bees? Genetics doesn't need many monkeys but bee husbandry suggests there would be a fair few. Possibly they all live invisibly in a hive object and then you can eject them to roam free. That could still let someone pop out 20 bees at no cost which is a nuisance.

[Sidewinder7]

One way to limit the number of bees is by balancing the amount of food they eat, so the number of bees you can keep(either alive, or eating enough to be breed-able) is based on the number(and quality?) of plants being grown. This would make beekeeping the perfect activity for botanists when there are no planter boxed available.

On the topic of making more bees:
In all likelihood, there will be a machine ("Bee Vat", "Bee-O-Matic", etc) that is used to produce bee eggs from samples. Possible candidates for samples include:


honey samples (either consuming the sample or just scanning it)
pros: makes honey more important
cons: might require modifying chemical code, and will require a specific behavior for when to dna carrying chemicals are mixed

dna samples (collected by using a BNA extractor on a bee or something)
pros: more straightforward
cons: might be encroaching on genetic's territory

misc drops(bees sometimes cough up 'dense nectar' or something)
pros: straightforward, would make sense to be single use, encouraging bees to be kept and fed so that they might drop these.
cons: requires walking around searching through junk on the floor to find.

another possibility is requiring queen bees for dna.
pros: makes sense
cons: almost entirely gates beekeeping behind acquiring royal jelly

any thoughts?

[Rodney Dick]

Isn't this something that ZeWaka had thoughts on?