Silly Question #2 - Mrs. Stingley's Bee Keeping Box - How do you get better quality honey?

I've always had bees, since they were released, but I've never really cared about how they function... Thanks @Mikezumi for enlightening me! :) I'm tired of getting foul honey, and now I know why...

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My advice make a comminity lot,one that fits your themes so you have several activities and more reasons to visit it.Like beekeeping hives,chicken coop,cow set.Or an orchard to pick multiple types of fruit with beekeeping boxes "The fruit tree farmers do that in RL".Saves you hastle because harvested honey on community lots is way better requires very little input on your part.Beekeeping on your home lot is a time sink just letting you know in advance.

No, you don't have to tend the bees every hour. They stay happy and content for a while after being tended to, and during that "while" their happiness level continues to increase. It decreases for every hour they are neglected after the effects of being tended to wear off. I would think 2-3x per day should be sufficient.

This doesn't really work as it should for most some of us, and we find that if we want happy bees and higher quality honey we have to tend to them on a commercial lot.

Note to self: No bees on home lot when I install Supernatural!

Just the thought of my sims eating anything less than perfect quality makes my skin crawl! :cold_sweat:

Hunger and cleanliness stats should increase every hour as long as they are fed and cleaned. It's tough to say how often but every hour isn't necessary. I don't think it stacks stats the more you do it in a day... But there's also no telling when it expires since the XML doesn't give any more information then what's provided on the wiki page. These pixel bees are not like real life bees and won't care about decorative flower bushes. The classical music bit is indeed a Sims 4 thing. But I won't judge... you can shower those bees with flowers and music if you want! ;)

Here's more info I've gathered from other sources:
Game tips mention Smoking the hive is beneficial. Smoking the hive not only reduces the chance of being stung or attacked by the bees but also increases happiness by 15%, also increases hunger. The smoke last for 4 hours

A sign of a happy hive- Bees will buzz around in a circle VS wildly swarming.

Once or twice a day: Smoke Hive, Clean Hive, Feed bees. Harvest when available.
According to someone who did this every sim day, they started to get outstanding honey within 2 sim weeks. (residential lot)

You can tend to bee hives on a community lot to make it easier since hives on a community lot won't go below a happiness score of 72/Very Nice quality.

Another option is to essentially cheat and download a tuning mod. It removes the need to clean&feed keeping the hive at 100 happiness score always= perfect honey 100% of the time
http://modthesims.info/d/506123
You could poke at it with S3PE to tune it.

edit to add: Typing on a smartphone is very slow. I apologize for some of the repeat info here. :D This thread is useful for me too since I haven't had my sims beekeep in a long while but will be doing so soon.

My current sim tends to the bees once each day, around the same time each morning. I always follow the same sequence - smoke the box, clean the box, feed the bees, harvest honey. She usually only gets stung once or twice in the first few days after getting a new box, and gets mostly perfect honey within a week or two after starting with a new one. But she has a big advantage over most other sims - she has the gatherer trait. None of my other sims that have kept bees has ever had it that easy. It usually works best for them to tend the bees twice a day. But even then, I only have them clean the box once each day.

I like the way there is a version for MORE bee attacks among the three offered on that mod, for those who can't get enough. Doesn't seem to be the most heavily downloaded one, though. :)

For once a question I can answer :D The bee hives of my sims have never produced foul honey. Then again the best honey and beeswax I get is great so I would say the bees are content rather than mega happy.

I always place the hives next to the garden plants. So they have a good source of pollen.

The sims tend the bees every day. The process is smoke the box, clean the box, feed the bees and then harvest the honey and beeswax. It seems to work because the sim rarely gets stung. I find the bees like it best when the same sim does this every day. And just as in real life they know when their sim dies, so whoever takes over the tending might get stung the first couple of times they tend the box until a new relationship is built up.

I don't have bees but I just found this.

12.5 - Foul
25 - Bad
37.5 - Normal
50 - Nice
62.5 - Very Nice
75 - Great
82.5 - Excellent
90 - Outstanding
97 - Perfect

My bees must really be unhappy because I either get "Horrifying" or "Putrid". And I'm presuming that my bees are probably absolutely incensed - probably freakin' enraged... (below 12.5) in order to get that kind of honey/beeswax.

Each bee hive has three happiness levels, Angry, Content, and Happy. The game keeps a hidden score of their mood in a range between 1 and 100. Anything below 30, and they're Angry. Between that and 65, they're Content. Above 65, and they're Happy. When you first buy and place the hive, the score starts at 50. Bees are made happy by cleaning the hive and feeding them. When the hive is both fed AND clean, it adds to the happiness score by 1.5 points per hour. If the hive is dirty, you lose 1.5 per hour, and the same 1.5 with being hungry, so that you'll lose 3 happiness per hour if bees are both hungry and dirty. Hunger and cleanliness both have their own 1-100 values. Hunger decays at 4 per hour, and cleanliness decays at 2 per hour.

So does this mean that you have to clean and feed them EVERY hour? :grimace: If so...that may be why I'm not getting decent honey. I may have to have a designated sim take care of the hive every single hour. That's gonna be tough.