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[Witty]

How does it work exactly?

The beekeeper successfully installed 5 artificial hives with colonies (currently ranging from 10k to 15k in population), and I'm assuming once a colony is ready to split is the same time it'll be harvestable. But will the colony naturally grow on its own, or is the beekeeper supposed to continually populate the colony manually?

[Dwarfu]

The beekeeper will install new hives (either by splitting the ones you have or from wild ones) unless you've changed the options on the hive.

[Mostali]

First, a warning, don't get high expectations from beekeeping. It's a little underwhelming for the effort.

The number of bees in the colony is cosmetic, as everything is harvested in single units on a regular schedule.  Harvesting destroys a colony, splitting does not.  Splitting is usually available slightly before harvesting, and once a beekeeper harvests a hive they will usually split another one into the now empty hive.  But if you want to be certain, set one of your five colonies to not gather and you will never run out of bees.

Other than that, I don't think the number of bees in a hive ever grows.  But again, it's cosmetic, so I haven't actually paid attention in well over a year.

[Witty]

So, the hives are just on an invisible timer that determines when the hive is splittable/harvestable?

[Mostali]

The wiki says nine months for harvesting and that seems about right. 

[Findulidas]

Also there might be wasted products due to bugs. Infact I cant remember ever reading about beekeeping and it not having annoying bugs.

[feelotraveller]

Bees are annoying bugs.  News to me.   

[Witty]

Also there might be wasted products due to bugs. Infact I cant remember ever reading about beekeeping and it not having annoying bugs.

Well, I accidently screwed myself a bit here by naively making bumblebees hiveable, but I wasn't aware that the mead reaction was strictly for honey bees...

That being said, the only real bug I ran into was 4229 - which at least can be kinda worked around.

[Linkxsc]

Beekeeping is pretty underwelming. But id be lying if i didnt do it whenever available. The initial setup is annoying, but then its just kinda a part time job for 1 dwarf.

I do wish that its products were a tad more useful. But alas its usually an unnecessary industry. A bit of arguing you could possiblely make beeswax soap as a slightly more useful product than wax crafts.

[Fleeting Frames]

Yeah, I guess honey/wax has been used to prevent infections and help body fight them amongst a lot of other stuff, but I guess part of it's issue is that it is low-production, outdoorsy, high-micro with low-medium value of output, with the only unique advantage laying in not needing plants or farming to get booze (was relevant for itg's obsidian-cast sky fortress).

Though, heh, sticking one next to hospital, so long you're willing to punch a hole, might result in some happy thoughts from recover wounded and stings I guess?

[Daris]

Beekeeping can be indoors and safe.  Just dig a 1-z channel and roof it over, and put your hives in the channel.  The roofed-over tiles have outdoor access, and you'll even sometimes even see bees on the floor above the hives.  Set every other hive to not collect the products, and your dwarves will never again go outside to collect a wild colony to re-fill hives.

I also do beekeeping despite the low output of low-quality products.  It just makes me happy.

[Fleeting Frames]

Interesting. I assumed that picking what colony would be stored in a hive would be dependent on distance from dwarf "as the bird flies" or the like. Thanks, I guess (current map doesn't even have any bees XD)

[Sanctume]

Iirc, if the biome is correct, and no honey bee hives exist, removing (construct floor) the ants, termites, and bumble bees can spawn the preferred honey bee hive.

I enjoy a 5z tower with 8 hives on each level, which maxes out the allowed behives to spawn.

[Mostali]

Iirc, if the biome is correct, and no honey bee hives exist, removing (construct floor) the ants, termites, and bumble bees can spawn the preferred honey bee hive.

I enjoy a 5z tower with 8 hives on each level, which maxes out the allowed behives to spawn.

I have it in my head, probably from reading something years ago, that 25 is optimal.  I've never known why, but I assumed that maybe wild colonies counted against the 40.  Does that ever happen to you with 40 hives?

[Sanctume]

I just follow the wiki and aim to get 40 max.  I don't recall seeing "too many hives" yet. 

From what I understand, wild colonies do affect the artificial hives splitting to make more.