Bees and honey

[Chuckles_82]

After buying a new hive, restarting the game and clearing caches, my hive started working as normal again. I had got it up to perfect before it started diving - so just a glitch I guess, but it wasn't just the one hive. I don't know where it stems from, but it's fixed for now. I'm up to the same amount of time again (about 2 weeks) so we'll see. I also like smoke, harvest, clean, feed. I think so long as you clean and feed them every 12 hours they'll continue to produce perfect honey.

[cathyknits]

I had the same thing happen, but it happened almost immediately. I'll try clearing caches. In the meantime smoke -> (clean, feed) repeated for 3.5 hours -> harvest honey has gotten it from Horrifying and Putrid back up to Bad - that worked out to about 6 clean/feed cycles a day.

[MoMoll]

I've never yet had bad honey. I smoke, harvest, smoke, clean, smoke feed. I have "great" honey.Only stung once.

[sims96fan]

I find that smoking, cleaning, feeding and then harvesting works best for me. In 10 days my sim only got stung once, and they got perfect honey. Also, honey is really good for money. My sim family lives of it with only 3 hives.

Not that I have any perfect honey, but I'm curious how much your sims are making from the honey?

[Toni]

Not that I have any perfect honey, but I'm curious how much your sims are making from the honey?

For nice honey, on the second day I was getting 10 bottles of honey each selling for around 34 simoleans. Then I got 6 Beeswax and they sold for around 50 simoleans and everyday the price goes up so after 4 days you get around 600 a day or more. At least thats what my games giving me. Peoples games seem to be quite different with all these glitches.

[CountessCrazy]

In the lessons it says that smoking may keep the bees from stinging but it also makes them eat less(I think that is what it said) and therefore the honey won't be as good. I don't care if my sims
get stung, I never smoke the hive, and I get perfect honey as long as I feed and clean every day.

[Schipperke]

Welcome to the forum, CountessCrazy! 

I haven't done a lot with beekeeping, and every time I have a Sim harvest honey, I always go through the whole routine of smoking, feeding and cleaning.  I don't know if it helps or not - sometimes my Sims get stung anyway.  I'd rather not let them get stung, as I don't like the negative moodlet, but so far I haven't found a surefire way to prevent it.

[Saltypaws]

Like someone said, if you neglect the hives and then try and harvest or clean, your sim will get stung.  It does take some patience to finally get it right.  I know my honey was foul most of the time.  When I started, I used, smoke, feed, clean.  In a few hours it had harvest, then I would harvest.  She would get stung, but I sent her back and she finished.  I kept up with that routine for two days and finally got nice honey.  I am with the rest of them though, I finally started to just buy it from the store, because if she neglected the hives for just one day, the honey would be bad.

[Leto85]

Despite the above info that I found in the game code, my bees seem to be producing worse and worse honey, despite cleaning and feeding at least twice a day. I'm wondering if there is some sort of glitch with the hives. Has anyone else noticed this? I'll be resetting the hive to see if it works or selling and replacing it.

I got the feeling something else might have an influence as well. Max Skills was very able to crack that quality up in no-tine at all.
Maybe some other skills are influencing this? I assume Alchemy in the first place. But maybe gardening or even cooking will play a role as well.

[cathyknits]

My beekeeper has supermaxed Gardening, and gets really lousy honey. He does only have Alchemy at 2. Hrm.

[Chuckles_82]

Ok, I think I found what the problem is. Despite smoking making the bees less likely to sting you, it makes them 15% less happy. I suspect that the glitch we're encountering is caused by that value possibly stacking. Either that or the cumulative 15% every 12 hours makes them less happy than being cleaned and fed. Therefore, I'd suggest not smoking the bees at all, but just cleaning and feeding them, if you want perfect honey and beeswax (and don't mind getting stung every now and then).

[Leto85]

Ok, I think I found what the problem is. Despite smoking making the bees less likely to sting you, it makes them 15% less happy. I suspect that the glitch we're encountering is caused by that value possibly stacking. Either that or the cumulative 15% every 12 hours makes them less happy than being cleaned and fed. Therefore, I'd suggest not smoking the bees at all, but just cleaning and feeding them, if you want perfect honey and beeswax (and don't mind getting stung every now and then).

Really? Because my sims smoke the bees constantly before doing the other things. And still the quality is perfect.

[MoMoll]

Really? Because my sims smoke the bees constantly before doing the other things. And still the quality is perfect.

I agree, smoke them 2 or 3 times befoer trying anything and they don't sting and the honey is good.

[Schipperke]

I agree, smoke them 2 or 3 times befoer trying anything and they don't sting and the honey is good.

Two or three times?  I've only ever done it once; maybe that's why my Sims often get stung.  I'll have to try doing it more than once.

[aphonycree]

I noticed that the hives in the Arboretum are next to a fire fruit plant. Maybe, like in real life, quality of the honey has to do with the quality of the plants the bees have been pollinating. I'm going to move my hive next to my garden and see if that helps.