The majority of this post is written under the assumption that you’re using Industrial Apiaries and the Advanced Mutatron. Everything is doable with standard apiaries and alvearies, but will be more difficult.
Bee Breeding is a fairly large part of Meatballcraft and understanding how to do it efficiently can save you a lot of time in the long run and also aid you in generating some less-enjoyable materials, such as Gaia Spirits and Flux. I want to start with an approach where I first present the end goal of your infrastructure and then how we approach reaching that point, followed with an example in how to use this.
You will need, in addition to the Industrial Apiaries and Advanced Mutatron, a Genetic Sampler, a Genetic Transposer, Genetic Replicator, DNA Extractor, Protein Liquefier, and Genetic Imprinter. These are listed in order of priority. It is also strongly recommended that you have access to generation of Rocky Hives and a Hibeescus.
Our end goal is to, as we breed a bee, to make a massively tolerant genetic template of it to allow us to produce queens at a moment’s notice. This ensures that we can generate bees as needed during future breeding and any bees we desire for production are able to be used in any biome with minimal infrastructure needed to support them.
To establish the basics: a Queen goes into an Industrial Apiary and will make its products occasionally over its lifespan before dying and turning into a princess and between 1-4 drones. Queens will only produce and have their lifespan tick down if the conditions are correct, either from biome or from Gendustry upgrades. Breeding a drone and a princess makes a new queen. Breeding a drone and princess of the same type will ALWAYS create a new queen of the same type. (edited)
Returning to our end goal, we accomplish this by creating two genetic templates with twelve of the available thirteen traits filled in, where the one left unfilled is the species. In the quest book is listed the bees with the best traits for this end, namely:
- Wintry Bees (Fertility 4, generates drones)
- Rocky Bees (Fertility 1, best for bees producing, as well as being diurnal and cave dwelling AND tolerating rain)
- Cyan Bees (+- 3 Humidity Tolerance)
- Lime Bees (+- 3 Temperature Tolerance)
- Temporal Bees (Immortal lifespan)
- Cultivated Bees (Shortest lifespan)
- Robotic Bees (Fastest production speed)
The most important of these bees right away are the Wintry, Cyan, Lime, and Rocky bees.
When you breed these bees, toss them into the Industrial Apiary and try to collect a wealth of drones from each. Those drones will be placed into the Genetic Sampler to try to collect the relevant Genetic Samples. You can use the Genetic Transposer to copy any Genetic Samples you get, so make sure to put one of each gene aside in case of emergencies. Copy each Sample and craft the copy with a Genetic Template to get a filled Genetic Template. Any bee will work for genes such as Flowers and Flowering, while whatever you have is fine for Production Speed (where faster is better), and Lifespan. Your two copies of this template should be one with Fertility 4 and one with Fertility 1.
As you breed new bees, breed extra drones and put them into the Genetic Sampler to find a Genetic Sample of the Bee’s species. Crafting that with your prepared 12/13 template allows you to place the filled template in the Genetic Replicator to create a new Ignoble princess of the desired type. Your Genetic Imprinter will also allow you to take existing queens and princesses and add genes of your choosing to those bees, but has a chance to destroy ignoble bees, so use it judiciously. The Hibeescus flower from Botania can use mana to promote a princess or queen from Ignoble to Pristine, and should be used on any bee you intend to keep around for production.
With all of this said, it is worth noting that humidity and temperature tolerances only apply to a bee's primary output. If you're seeking to farm a secondary output, e.g. fluxed electrum nuggets, you'll still need to perfectly match the bee's temperature and humidity requests. (edited)
For concreteness, here are the two templates I make and recommend:
Breeding (12/13) Species: None Never Sleeps: True Flowering: Slow* Speed: Fast* Humidity Tolerance: Both 3 Flowers: Flowers* Lifespan: Shortest Effect: None* Tolerates Rain: True Fertility: 4 Territory: Average* Temperature Tolerance: Both 3
Production Species: None Never Sleeps: True Flowering: Slow* Speed: Robotic Humidity Tolerance: Both 3 Flowers: Flowers* Lifespan: Immortal Effect: None* Tolerates Rain: True Fertility: 1 Territory: Average* Temperature Tolerance: Both 3
Any starred trait can be swapped at no impact. When you need a bee, collect a genetic sample, combine with the prepared template (templates can be copied), and make bees as needed. (edited)
- Use the industrial apiary for every bee except Mad Scientist Bees
- Use Gendustry's upgrades, namely automation and lifespan
- Make a genetic species sample of every bee you make
abuse dragon loop. woot is good for mobs but it takes a bit for the first one (there is a single mob for every arlemite/realmite/etc metal that drops it). for item logistics: xnet, xnet, xnet, xnet, xnet, xnet. setup autocrafting for extended crafting recipes early, noone wants to do those manually every time. passive all the enderio alloys.