How the game works

Idle Beekeepers is a slow game. The farm runs on a calendar, the bees on the seasons, and you on what you've seen.

The year

The year starts in spring, in mid-March, and runs through summer, autumn and winter. At the normal speed a year takes about 24 minutes; you can slow it, pause it or speed it up, and more speed opens up as the farm runs itself. Nectar flows in waves: the spring bloom, a gap, the lime trees in July, then the long dearth of late summer. Winter is quiet: the bees cluster, and so do your jobs.

Your day at the hives

Each day has room for about 8 hive visits. Opening a hive takes one; lifting it to feel its weight (hefting) takes half. You open hives only on a warm, dry day (16 °C or more): opening one in the cold chills the brood. The bees fly from about 12 °C, and on those days you can watch an entrance without opening anything.

You only know what you saw

A hive card shows what you saw the last time you looked, and says how long ago. The colony has moved on since. Queens fail, mites climb, stores run down, and a crowded colony builds queen cells before it swarms. Looking costs a visit and disturbs the bees; not looking costs you surprises.

Books and knowledge

Almost everything you can do comes from a book: you buy them at the co-op, and every chapter is real beekeeping. Finishing a book earns knowledge, and so does learning from each winter's losses; knowledge buys techniques that make the work easier.

There are 16 techniques, each with 5 levels; a level costs twice the one before (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 knowledge), and each brings the technique closer to a realistic best without reaching it. A winter banks 1 knowledge, plus the square root of the colonies that came through, counted up to 49 (so at most 8), plus 1 for each new way of losing a colony. Knowledge also pays for the county's projects that end the game; a keeper short of it waits a winter or two. Techniques stay with the farm: after the ending, the next keeper starts with 10% of the knowledge, in the notebook passed on with the book.

Growing

A farm grows by splitting strong colonies, catching swarms in bait hives, and buying nucs. Colonies need forage, so a farm grows out into yards: an orchard, a lime avenue, a heath, fields rented from farmers. Past the home yard, rent is due each spring.

Selling

Honey sells from an honesty box at the gate, at the market, to the co-op in bulk and to customers who order ahead. Wax becomes candles and more, honey becomes mead, and a honey house and a brand turn a hobby into a business.

Staff and time away

Hired hands take on the work, and every role you staff makes the days go by faster. Close the game and the farm goes on: without staff it waits for you after about a season (91 days); with staff it keeps going at half its pace for up to a year, and stops early only for what truly needs you, like a death or an offer about to run out.

The county

A big farm stops being about money. The county projects (hedgerows, a pollinator corridor, a bee school, a programme for hardier bees, a breeding station and a Foundation) need colonies, money and people you've taught on tours of the farm. The Foundation is the last of them.

The family, and a new farm

After 25 to 30 years you can pass the book to your heir, who has worked beside you, and carry on as them; at 40 it passes on its own. Nothing on the farm changes. After the Foundation you can leave your book at the co-op for someone like you and start a new farm, keeping 10% of all the knowledge you ever earned and 25% of your reputation.