Bee Basics

To start, you'll want to find some bee nests. The vanilla ones only generate in forests, but the hives added in Complicated Bees can generate pretty much anywhere - in the jungle, in the desert, underground, and even in the Nether and End!

Be careful, though - you'll need a special tool called a Scoop to collect the bees if you want to avoid getting stung in retaliation for destroying their homes.

Just use the scoop to break a bee nest, and you'll get a princess, a couple drones, and maybe even a comb or two!

The Apiary

Now that you have bees, you'll want to set them up in a house of their own, so they can start producing that sweet, sweet, honey! An apiary is ideally suited to this task - with easily-accessible space for bees, frames, and products, this wonderful little block is a beekeeper's (or, if you're feeling fancy, an apiarist's) best friend!

Once you've located a good spot to set up shop, just plop down your apiary and place your princess in the top slot and a drone in the bottom, and you're off to the races! A princess and drone combine into a queen, which will produce combs if fully satisfied. If the bar on the left turns red, just hover over it to see what else the queen needs to be satisfied.

Now that you have a queen content with her surroundings, she'll slowly produce combs and (eventually) die, leaving behind a princess and some drones. Start the cycle all over again, and you have (theoretically) infinite honey!

When the queen dies, it will produce offspring: always one princess, and a variable amount of drones (based on its fertility gene!) These drones will have a semi-random combination of genes from both parents. For more information, check out the Genes section.

Automation can insert bees and extract outputs from any side. Automation cannot insert or extract frames, however.

Environmental Conditions

Bees need specific conditions to work in, which vary by species - generally, bees prefer to work in environments similar to the ones they are native to; for example, a Jungle bee would prefer a hot and humid environment. You can use a meter to measure the temperature and humidity of the surrounding areas.

Bees also need specific 'flowers' nearby, which tend to be plants native to whatever biomes the bees are native to. Azaleas, vines, dead shrubs, even skulls - all of these and more are potentially flowers that your species of bee might need.

Combs and You

How do you get the honey out of combs? It's a little too sticky to manually dig out of the combs cleanly, and you have MUCH better things to do with your time, I'm sure. Enter the Centrifuge: this machine will spin things really, really fast, separating them by density - in this case, your combs into honey, wax, and other potential extra things.

However, this spinning needs something with a little more oomph than some hot air from burning things. This is where a Furnace Generator comes in - by taking hot air from burning things, you can generate oomph! (or as others like to call it, Redstone Flux a.k.a. RF)

Just put a furnace generator next to a centrifuge, give it some fuel, and you'll have your centrifuge up and running in no time!

Most combs produce honey and wax, which have their uses - some combs, though, will produce special resources in addition to those.

Genetics Overview

Bees have genes, which control every single thing about them - productivity, environmental preferences and tolerances, effects, etc. Breeding two different species of princess and drone together will result in a hybrid, or rarely, a mutation. These hybrid offspring have a collection of genes from their parents according to mendelian genetics. Use a Punnett square to help you visualize the possible results of a crossbreed!

In the previous example, the crossbreed of a Forest-Plains princess and a Forest-Plains drone has three possible offspring - pure Forest, a Forest-Plains hybrid, and pure Plains. Each square has an equal chance of being selected; therefore, when breeding them together, 50% of the time you'll get a hybrid, 25% of the time you'll get pure Forest, and 25% of the time you'll get pure Plains.

This process happens for every single gene a bee has - to actually see a bee's genes, you'll have to make an analyzer.

The Analyzer

The analyzer lets you examine a bee's genes in-depth, as well as seeing its inactive genes; no more sneaky recessive traits ruining your ideal crossbreed!

Once made, use it to open up the analyzer interface. You'll have to place a bee in the bee slot and some honey drops in the other slot to pacify the bee and analyze it. Once you do, the bee's whole genome will be shown to you. You can see its active and inactive genes, whether a specific gene is dominant or recessive, some very special flavor text, and more!

Use this information and Punnett squares to direct your crossbreeding efforts, and create the ultimate bee!

Dominant and Recessive?

All values of a gene (called 'alleles') are either dominant or recessive, shown in the analyzer as red or blue. When two different alleles are present within a bee's genotype, a dominant allele will be active over a recessive allele.

This means to have a recessive allele be active in a bee, you have to breed in such a way that produces two recessive alleles within a bee. When there are two alleles that are both dominant or both recessive, the active allele is randomly chosen.

Mutations

Some species of bee, when bred with others, will result in a brand-new species of bee! Generally these bees show as hybrids with one of the parent species, but occasionally you might get lucky and find a purebred mutation.

When an offspring mutates, one whole chromosome (half of a bee's genetic structure) is completely replaced with the result species' 'pure' chromosome. This means you might get some spontaneous generation of new traits - new bee effects, temperature tolerances, work speeds, and more.

Carefully breed these mutated bees with your current genetic stock to get more! Keep in mind that some species are recessive, and will take more effort to breed true.

Frames

Frames are consumable 'upgrades' for your apiaries! Each one has a different effect when slotted into an apiary, from increasing production to outright changing environmental conditions for the bees inside it. Frames will slowly take damage as they are used, necessitating replacement every so often. Mix and match to achieve your ideal set of bonuses!