Beekeeping

Bees provide important resources in Vintage story. Using simple methods, bees can be tended and their products harvested.

Four skeps on a table. The brown object under the tree is a wild beehive.

Finding Wild Bees

Finding wild bees can be difficult. Wild bees are a rare spawn in warm climates, but they don't spawn in climates that are too arid or too wet. The best way to find them is to turn the game sound all the way up and wander around in forested areas. Bees are often heard before they are seen. Keep listening for bees, and checking the trees in the area. Wild hives can be inside or suspended from a log.

Specifically, beehives spawn anywhere all three climate values in the following chart agree:

Parameter	Min. value	Max. value
Temperature	5	35
Rainfall	0.35	0.85
Forest	0.25	1.0

Capturing Wild Bees

Bees are captured using a skep. Players can view the size of the hive, number of flowers in range, and an estimate for the number of days until the hive swarms by pressing 'B' (block info) and mousing over the hive. The wild hive must reach a large population before it will divide and populate the skep.

Populating an empty skep

Place an empty skep within seven blocks of the wild beehive. If there are no flowers near the wild hive, the population will not increase enough to split. To increase the population, bees require at least five Flowers within seven blocks of the wild hive. Bees must explore their area to locate and feed on any newly placed flowers, but they will find these flowers over time.

Transporting a filled skep

Filled skeps can be transported in an empty bag slot. Once populated, pick up the skep. It will be placed into the empty bag slot and can be carried home. breaking the skep will destroy the skep and might spawn a swarm of angry bees.

Placing a filled skep

Place the populated skep in a prepared apiary. First, select the skep in the backpack slot. This can be done by holding the sprint and scrolling or by pressing Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+4. Then place the skep on to a solid block.

Protip: Raccoons are mischievous creatures! Make sure to build a fence around your skeps so the honey is safe from naughty raccoons.

Apiary

Bees search for flowers in a range of seven blocks in both directions. To reach a large population, bees need [5+3X] flowers, where X is the number of other skeps within range. Well fed populations of bees can be split to fill additional skeps, or harvested when mature.

Propagating bee populations

Additional skeps can be filled from the original, allowing players to increase the number of skeps available for harvesting. Bees transfer to empty skeps placed within 7 blocks of a filled skep, as capturing bees from a wild hive. As the population of the original skep grows, the bees will divide to populate nearby empty skep.

Optimized Skep Layout

The simplest layout for ensuring each skep has enough flowers is to place skeps 2 tiles apart and surround them with flowers. This pattern can be repeated indefinitely and each skep will have enough flowers to reach a large population.

A simple optimized tileable skep & flower layout

Harvesting skeps

As the bee population increases they produce more honeycomb. Over time the entrance of the skep will turn from a dull yellow to a bright yellow as the skep fills. When a player examines the populated skep, the block information will show that the skep has become "harvestable". At this point, breaking the skep (left mouse button) will provide honeycomb and some of the cattails used to make the skep. Pick up the harvested items and move out of the area.

Angry Bees

Though bees can be collected from the wild, they cannot be domesticated. There is always a chance that breaking the skep will spawn an angry bee swarm. One technique to avoid attacks from the angry swarm is to place straw dummies near the hives so the bees attack the decoys instead of players. If a player remains in the area of an angry swarm, bees may still attack even if a straw dummy is present. Also, make sure the skeps are not placed near animal pens, as angry bees will attack any nearby living thing, including the animals players are currently domesticating.

Honey & Wax

Honeycomb can be processed into honey and wax. First, place an empty fired bowl or bucket on the ground. Next, while holding the honeycomb, aim the cursor at the empty bowl or bucket and right click to "squeeze" the honey from the comb. This action will fill the bowl or bucket with honey and the remaining wax will appear in the player's inventory. Each honeycomb yields 0.25 liters of honey and one wax. A bowl holds honey from one honeycomb portion, while a bucket holds honey from 40 honeycombs.

When eaten, Honey restores 0.5 health points, and can also be used to make jam, added to meals like porridge, or to craft healing poultices. Wax (stacks to 32) can be used to seal food crocks for long term food preservation, and crafted into a candles by placing three wax in a column in the crafting grid. Candles never burn out and can be placed on top of solid blocks or in chandeliers. Up to 9 candles can be placed on the same block and each candle added to the block increases the light level. Candles are also used to craft lanterns.

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