Bee hives (again)

The relationship is built for each sim seperately. I've literally never had 5 hives at the same time, but I had 3 at one point in my current household and, at first, I had two different sims bonding with them. 1 bonded with one hive and the other with 2...just to save a little time so both sims had more time for other things. Eventually one sim did end up bonding with all 3, because she had far less going on (and thus more time).

As far as my routine, I just did bonding once or twice per day with each hive, right before doing the gardening. I know you can rush it along by doing it more frequently but I didn't bother because it goes up relatively quickly even doing it just once per day (per hive).

The one sim that does it still has the same morning routine:

1. Feed insects (just 1)
2. Nurture insectsx2
3. Feed Seymour (cow plant)
4. Get honey and beeswax from all hives.
5. Harvest all harvestables.
6. Make friendly with any bunnies that are out and have reduced relationship bars

It takes her 3-4 hours sim time to do all that.

Her husband's routine takes similarly as long but his is to care for all the animals (2 chicken coops, 1 cow and 1 llama) and make friendly with all the birds.

Beacause of the bees, bunnies and birds, they never have to do actual garden tending other than harvesting. Sprinklers do the watering, bees do the fertilizing, bunnies do the weeding and the birds take care of the bugs.

I have two hives and my stay at home sim mom takes care of them while hubby and eldest daughter are at work and two younger daughters are at school. She also tends the insect farms, one of each, and takes care of the chickens, cow, and llama. On weekends she'll continue to take care of the bees while hubby tends to the other animals and insects.

Thanx for info! So, my House of Honeydew might have taken on too much then, starting out with 16 bee hives, LOL. My plan is to have just one sim do it all, it really won't take long if bees are calm. I guess he will bond only with those in calm status, so in a while it might be just a big handful per round. Maybe another household member can handle the mites and harvest honey & wax, and a 3rd household member can tend a sales table.
Should keep them busy I hope:)

My sims got bee hives on release but this far only saw poor quality honey, so it is on time I focus more on this feature.

"Simmerville;c-18033735" wrote:
Thanx for info! So, my House of Honeydew might have taken on too much then, starting out with 16 bee hives, LOL. My plan is to have just one sim do it all, it really won't take long if bees are calm. I guess he will bond only with those in calm status, so in a while it might be just a big handful per round. Maybe another household member can handle the mites and harvest honey & wax, and a 3rd household member can tend a sales table.
Should keep them busy I hope:)

My sims got bee hives on release but this far only saw poor quality honey, so it is on time I focus more on this feature.

They are angry when they have mites, once you apply the treatment they calm down.

One benefit of doing all of it with just one sim is, I think, the other interactions beside bonding also raise the meter a bit. Either that or there is absolutely no decay on it, because once fully bonded I've never needed to have a sim use the bond interaction again to keep it topped off.

Also, they go dormant in Winter and are just always angry through the winter....no risk of a sting when you harvest the beeswax in winter though, because dormant bees do not sting. (No honey in winter though, just beeswax)

"Stormkeep;c-18033758" wrote:
One benefit of doing all of it with just one sim is, I think, the other interactions beside bonding also raise the meter a bit. Either that or there is absolutely no decay on it, because once fully bonded I've never needed to have a sim use the bond interaction again to keep it topped off.

Also, they go dormant in Winter and are just always angry through the winter....no risk of a sting when you harvest the beeswax in winter though, because dormant bees do not sting. (No honey in winter though, just beeswax)

Ah, good to know about Winter. I never checked hives for wax in Winter, I thought it was all paused for the season...

Good question and great answers.

Great thread!

Glad you finally got answers! This thread turned out to be rather informative. I've never fully achieved bonding status, but then again, I gave up too soon.

"GalacticGal;c-18035485" wrote:
Glad you finally got answers! This thread turned out to be rather informative. I've never fully achieved bonding status, but then again, I gave up too soon.

I pretty much always have beehives if I have a garden for the household, and I pretty much always have a garden if they don't live in the city....so the bees and I have a long term relationship. The reason is because having the hives means you don't need to fertilize, and I'm lazy that way. Plus I like getting honey.