Apiary
Contents
Apiary
An apiary and it's attached garden provide a home for bees and a garden full of flowers to encourage honeycomb production allowing the eventual production of a lovely honeyed mead to enjoy in the taverns.
Building of the Apiary
Town Ranchers must oversee the building of their beehives inside their apiary. The town level determines how many beehives can be had. One beehive per town level. The rancher can create the beehive with 5 stones. Once they've filled the apiary garden for that hive by planting ten roses, bees will come to make their home and delicious honey.
Maintaining the Apiary
The apiary garden must be kept full of roses to help maintain the bee population. Ranchers must monitor the health of their bees and the condition of the hive. To ensure the bees are productive they must plant roses. To shore up the beehive itself stone is needed to keep the honey gathering operational. Each rose improves the bee's health and productivity by 10 percent. And each stone addition increases the hive health by 20 percent.
Crumbling Apiaries
Lack of care allows the hive's health to degrade. Starting at 20 percent health there is a risk of the stone hive crumbling. Crumbling causes destruction of both hive and the garden requiring the entire apiary be rebuilt. The likelihood of crumbling increases exponentially as the health of the hive decreases.
Workers
Working in the apiary does NOT consume a worker's daily action, leaving them free to also work in a field, workshop, or town resources.
Working in the apiary decreases the health of that hive by .2% per worker. If this number goes down much your chances of increased honey production decreases too.
Production of Honey and Honeycomb
Honey is produced every hour if the apiary is kept fully planted and workers are cultivating the garden. Each worker potentially increases the honey output by 0 to 10%. This number is impacted by the garden's rose percentage and the health of the hive. Maintain these two numbers for the highest possible output. When the honey output percentage gets to 100 the honeycombs will be harvested at the next hourly reset.
Honeycomb Usage
Honeycomb can be gathered and sold to be eaten, or to a Baker to produce mead. The sweetened honey drink can then be sold to the taverns for some good, sweet fun.
