Talk:Bee Breeding Guide
This whole guide should probably be prefaced by a short blurb on why players might want to do bees at all. What kind of space/time/resource (fairly low/high/medium-but-specialized) commitment it is.
1.1
Why are we only recommending unbreakable scoops? Are they the best; yes, do you need one as a prerequisite to get started? absolutely not. I'm in LV and regularly collect bees and I think I've gone through one GT scoop in all that time. If someone knows they want to do bees later in the game, the earlier they start grabbing hives the better. At the very minimum, players who think they *might* want to do bees should be JourneyMap waypointing any hives they spot (turn off Enable to avoid visual spam) ASAP.
Warn players away from the Apiarist Database, as it's expensive (costs a Beealyzer!) and most of its info can be seen in NEI for free. Only craft if its cost is utterly trivial to the player's current tier/resources.
Hives do not always drop a Princess. I've broken at least two in this pack that only gave a drone. Rare, but it does happen.
Why are we recommending the field kit AND the beealyzer? The field kit does nothing the beealyzer doesn't besides not having a honey drop requirement, and it's pretty useless once you've got the beealyzer.
Thaumic Restorer is awesome, but hardly a requirement to get started in bees. It doesn't come into play until you have those very expensive-to-replace frames. Paper is easily acquired from paperbark trees, seems silly to require an advanced magic item just to get a stone age resource.
Flight potions are good - maybe mention other means of getting around. Hive acquisition means lots of travel. There's also no mention here about how to easily hunt hives, esp. at night or with JourneyMap in night mode. The standard Forestry hives glow at night, making them easy to spot. The Curious/Unusual/Resonating do not. Also no mentions about how biome affects which kinds of hives will be world-generated.
2.1 I've always heard them called 'mundane bees', but maybe the terminology has changed?
Hive drops are not just a way of getting, but the only way to acquire the Valiant species.
Give reason(s) why buying Steadfast from the quest book is not recommended.
Emeralds are not hard to acquire via villager trading; both trading for Monastic drones and buying them is probably viable - would be nice if the costs were listed, as those buy quests are gated.
2.2
- possibly have a mutation, odds dependent on the parent species and other factors.
There's nowhere I can see that explains the differences between Bee Houses, Apiaries, and the more advanced housings. I.e. which are automatable, production bonuses, can mutate, does/does not require power, etc. Would be good as a table. (Not necessarily in this section, but somewhere.)
2.2.1 "this will be explained in more detail later" either remove this or say where to go for more information, exactly. No explanation of what effects are beneficial or harmful. Would be a good list or table. In particular new players are likely to have their first "bad" experience with Tropicals. Apiarist suit not mentioned?
Pollinate trees - only Forestry trees! Doesn't work on other mods/vanilla. Also maybe warn about potential butterfly apocalypse if you run Bees + Forestry trees uncontained...
Only queens with the "Flowers" trait spread flowers - some spread other things? A table of what the various "Flower Types" would be extremely helpful, as some are quite obtuse (Such as End being the dragon egg...)
Huh, I didn't know some hybrid queens couldn't be jubilant. I thought only the primary (active) alleles influenced a Queen's climate wants, TIL!
2.2.2 don't use ignoble bees you can ignore the first part. -> Ignore the potential for no Princess, not ignore that there'll only ever be one.
Needs to mention the number of drones is the Fertility trait. and Fertility doesn't mean diddlysquat when it comes to Princess production numbers.
Genetic copy of drones - unsure if this is expanded upon later, but it's a KEY CONCEPT and needs to be emphasized as it's how you get a Princess for species that don't give you one or you cannot otherwise acquire.
2.2.3 Mention Field Kit only shows you the Active trait half, not the inactive. "The appearance, including name, and produce are also tied to the species." Possible mutations also species-linked.
QB - quest book. don't use abbreviations where they aren't necessary and haven't been introduced explicitly. 3. replacment by mutated species - make it clear that if a mutation happens, ALL genes for that "parent" become default for the new species. See the mutation section for details. -> I don't see a mutation section. Heterogeneous traits are bad -> undesirable, not bad. Also doesn't explain the main reason why they're undesirable well, which is it makes inheritance less predictable and potentially loses a more valuable trait when breeding successive generations. flagrante delicto -> unclear language
With a fertility of 1, you have two chances (princess and drone) to get the offspring you want. With a fertility of 4, you have five chances. -> not clear. With a fert 1, you have no choices. You must use the single drone you get unless introducing new genetic material (outside drones or a parallel lineage). Since you MUST use the princess you get. IMPORTANT: Fert 3/4 are recessive! That makes them troublesome if you're trying to cross with a Fert 1/2 species, especially the dreaded x1'ers.
The others largely don't matter for breeding. -> lifespan matters a LOT. cycling a hive faster means getting mutations/offspring sooner. Other traits may not matter strictly for breeding, but should be paid attention to for the sakes of later use, if a species has a particularly good one (like Cultivated's Production).
Also this section needs a quick rundown of Trait -> What it is, for all the traits. i.e. Production: influences how fast the Queen makes things, Flower: bee needs this nearby to work, Lifespan: how long the Queen lives, etc. Or at a bare minimum a link to the Traits appendix.
2.3 "I" should be avoided in guides. "Conduits with self feed enabled can be used to automate apiaries." This is a prime spot for a picture illustrating what's being described. Note here that Bee houses cannot be automated? Only bees without Cave Dwelling care about having the top of their hive obstructed.
Mention exactly what item 'conduit' is. EnderIO item conduit, I'm assuming?
You should do this for every bee species you make and leave them until you reach the alveary. -> I would not recommend this, as it's better to focus on species who produce good drops? Or "automate a new species until you have a stack of drones, then put them away in storage if they don't make a comb you need" There's really no need to constantly produce worthless combs like Rocky or Parched all the time, and if you want tons of drones for the Escritoire focus on 4x lineages.
Talks about automating frames but hasn't explained yet what frames are, or what they do. Again, table would be helpful.
Missing other ways of automating bees, such as Apiarist pipe, GT pipes, etc.
2.4 Similar to crops, -> specify IC2 crops, and link to IC2 crop breeding/info page. the gregtech scanner is the worst one. -> redundant due to later paragraph explaining why scanner isn't good. You should make the field kit, beealyzer -> Why would you bother with Field Kit when you have Beealyzer? I can only see this being helpful in two situations - you don't have the tech tier to make Beealyzer, or you have no honey drops to run it. Field Kit is slow and doesn't offer complete genetic info. Do partially scanned bees from the Field Kit show full stats in the Beealyzer? If so that's a reason to use both, again only if honey drops are scarce.
Cheesing paper isn't really relevant to Bee Breeding. I'd cut this section.
you mainly care about species and fertility -> no? only if you're breeding solely for mutations. If you're breeding for a good genetic stock, this is wrong. Personally I always start by establishing a "best traits" lineage before getting to work on mutations, because you get some species (Tropical, in particular) it's hard to get Pristine and they have negatives (climate needs + poison effect). Or 1x Fert on Rockies. Either way new players should be on the lookout for nice traits in their new mutations, and try to hang onto those.
3.0 Maybe start out by explaining what the Alveary is, and why players might want one (more than one, really.) Just slamming newbies with a ton of calculations and math right off the bat for a thing they have no idea what it is isn't good. Also, picture of an alveary. Explain it can take various 'upgrade' blocks that let it do different things.
3.1
Some of this data would be more concise as a table.
3x as many species (not fun at all) -> why would you call breeding bees unfun in a guide that's supposed to be about promoting the selfsame activity? Also, opinion. Change to fact, such as "takes much longer" or "bigger investment/more effort".
and magic apiaries have 0.9x when I boosted and 1.8x when boosted -> Random "I?" not understanding. Also explain what boosted means/how to boost.
3.3.1 Explain how to look up mutation percentages in NEI, and/or Beealyser. 4x Fertility crossed with any other bee that has 1x or 2x will result in a bad time, as it's recessive. Meadows are NOT 3x fert! This process only works with Forest x Wintry, which has some climate needs, and once you get the 2x mutation from Common it's again going to push any 3/4x to the inactive side. only downside -> this is a pretty big hurdle. You MUST have access to a biome Wintry can work in for this to pan out, minimum Cold and it may even need Icy; it can lose its Up 1 tolerance in breeding/mutating. Honestly I would not recommend this crossing for first time players. It's much safer to go with Meadows x Forest x Sorcerous x Mystical x Unusual (pick any two). Yes, they have only 2x fert, but you can run two hives and get the same odds without having to mess around with climate problems, making it much simpler for a newbie. says it will explain mutations in its own section, but I cannot see such a section? other than the math section, is that meant? Link to it! (Currently up to this section, will continue later.)