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[Norseman]

• Using the Q menu on a hive should tell you whether or not they currently have a colony in them. You can currently find out if a hive has honey through the View Items in Buildings menu, but it's not as convenient as also showing that status in the Q menu.
• Installing a colony in a different hive should be faster. Right now, a dabbling beekeeper is slow enough at it that they rarely succeed before they get too tired, hungry and thirsty to do it even once. It shouldn't take an in-game month to move a hive, even for a dabbling beekeeper.
• It seems that beekeepers will always wait to split a colony as long as you have colonies with living bee populations, whether or not those colonies are ready to be split. I think beekeepers should prefer to split from wild colonies so that you can press more of your own hives, instead of having to keep a lot of hives in reserve for splitting.
• Bees aren't stinging people correctly. They seem to occasionally sting anyone who walks past their hive, randomly. Normally, bees sting the hell out anyone who messes with their hive, and they mostly leave everyone else alone. Those dabbling beekeepers should be suffering one sting after another.
• Honey and mead should be more valuable. Right now, both of them are worth 1☼. Dwarven syrup, for comparison, is worth 20☼. Honey should be worth at least 10☼ and maybe as much as 40☼. Mead should be worth anywhere from 2☼ to 8☼, since you get a stack of 5 mead for each unit of honey.

[profit]

On the same token.  Royal Jelly harvesting is not period appropriate.. It was only done hundreds of years later to my knowledge.

[NW_Kohaku]

As I understand it, royal jelly was included as a sort of homage/Easter Egg to Roguelike games and some JRPGs, because it is often used as a magic or health restoring potion. 

Basically, it's not meant to be realistic.  You'll probably see it become useful as a alchemical component in something when alchemy finally comes in.

[EmperorJon]

Royal Jelly harvesting is not period appropriate

Once again I feel I must point out the DF doesn't really have a period. Sure, there's technological levels, but, well were there elves and demons and goblins and dragons... and dwarves around? No. So they're not appropriate. Go play Man Fortress.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Norseman: "Normally, bees sting the hell out anyone who messes with their hive, and they mostly leave everyone
     else alone."

Unfortunately, angry bees can't be depended on to attack only those who "mess with their hives". I do agree that bee aggression tends to bee more "binary" however (each sting triggers more stings).

On average, I'd say that if someone angers a hive (and there are several ways to do this), its bees will sting anyone within about 40 feet and give chase to sting-victims for at least 100 feet. Someone running with an "attached" attack-cloud (bees are difficult to outrun), can have bees split off and sting others nearby (within about 15 feet).

[profit]

Royal Jelly harvesting is not period appropriate

Once again I feel I must point out the DF doesn't really have a period. Sure, there's technological levels, but, well were there elves and demons and goblins and dragons... and dwarves around? No. So they're not appropriate. Go play Man Fortress.

Actually it does have one. Toady has said quite a few times 1400AD tech on earth is the cutoff point for what he wants in the game.   Now of course he can do what he wishes, but that was the rule that he laid down.

[Draco18s]

Even that isn't a hard and fast rule, but a guideline for suggestions.  For example, if Toady had not implemented Royal Jelly and people asked for it.

[Buzzing_Beard]

Even though it wasn't common until the 50's, someone with knowledge of the procedure could produce and harvest royal jelly using only "1400's era" technology (just not with skeps ).

Skeps are those iconic upside-down basket style hive-bodies. Skeps couldn't be used to produce royal jelly, are unnecessarily cruel to bees, and aren't splittable. Dwarves seem to currently use skeps, but I recommend they adopt top-bar hives instead.

[Draco18s]

Actually I think we're using clay hives due to the fact that our manufacturing options are stone and clay in-game.

[Buzzing_Beard]

I thought they might be based on skeps because the bees were being killed at harvest. There are several different kinds of "clay hive", but the one pictured in your link would act essentially like a skep.

Clay hives can also be tubular, making it possible to harvest honey without killing the bees (in a tube the bees keep all of the brood near the entrance, and store the honey in the back).

Here are some Egyptian-style mud tubes:


The backs could be opened and smoked, allowing the honeycomb to be cut out (still couldn't produce royal jelly or be split though).

[Draco18s]

True.  We probably have some weird dwarven hybrid for Gameplay Convenience.