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[lue]

So, according to the wiki's Beekeeping Industry page,

In order to house bees, a hive must be constructed on or adjacent to a tile that is above ground.

Yet I have three hives with well over 10000 honey bees each in a location where there are no above ground tiles under or adjacent to any of the hives. I have to wonder, is this a fluke on my end, a bug either unreported or not mentioned on the wiki, or an error on the wiki's part?

[lethosor]

Are the tiles the hives are built on listed as Above ground or Subterranean? (shown by [k]) If you have bees living in a hive on a subterranean tile, then this is probably unintended (although maybe not - the wiki seems to imply that hives can also be successful on a subterranean tile adjacent to an above ground tile, but I haven't checked this.)

[lue]

Yet I have three hives with well over 10000 honey bees each in a location where there are no above ground tiles under or adjacent to any of the hives.

I double-checked even. I will say though that the bee populations don't appear to be changing, though that may just be a part of the normal process so far, I wouldn't know.

[Larix]

My experience is that beehives will thrive if they are built on or have adjacent a tile that's "aboveground". The hive info talks about "outside", but aboveground tiles that are "inside" work just as well.

Does the interaction menu say "no outside access" in red? If not, the hive's aboveground enough to work normally. If you get this message, dwarfs will still build the hive and put a colony inside. I haven't waited long enough yet, but suspect the hive will be unproductive.

[lue]

It does in fact say No Outside Access. I admittedly haven't yet tried to collect honey. I do have one beehive considered outside, which I can use as a control when I try to collect honey.

[Larix]

I built a beehive underground in addition to the aboveground apiary and watched for about a year for what'd happen.  Underground hives will have colonies installed and the colonies will grow and become splittable, but they produce no honey. Presumably they could be used as "breeder" hives, separate from the "production" hives that must be on or adjacent to aboveground tiles, but safe aboveground tiles are trivially easy to generate. I added the findings to the "beekeeping industry" article on the wiki.

[Loud Whispers]

Yeah, it does not make it impossible to do, just impossible to profit. It's the same with colony overpopulation.