Productive Bees in FTB Evolution 2

Productive Bees adds a whole range of new bees on top of the vanilla bee system. This pack ships version 26.1.2-15.2.0. The mod's own guide assumes you already know how vanilla bees work.^[1][2]

Where the bees come from

You will find new solitary bees living in well hidden nests in different biomes of the overworld. They do not live in a hive, but their genetics let you breed different types. Wild bees live mostly in the nether and the end, and unlike solitary bees they will happily move into a hive.^[2][3][4]

Hive bees live in hives like the vanilla bee. They need advanced hives to produce resource combs. Most are bred from solitary bees and other hive bees, while some are made by giving a specific item to a bee or by crafting spawn eggs. Use JEI to look up breeding recipes and flower requirements.^[2][5]

Getting started

1. Find a vanilla bee nest and collect honey bottles and honeycombs.^[2]
2. Use the honey bottles to craft Bee Cages, which make it much easier to carry bees home.^[2]
3. With enough honeycombs, build an advanced beehive and an expansion box. The advanced beehive lets you look inside and see what your bees produce.^[2]

What else the mod adds

• Special task bees. For example the Farmer Bee harvests crops in a 4 block radius around its home hive, and the Collector Bee picks up items from the ground.^[6][7][8]
• The Centrifuge, which turns resource combs into resources and honey. It is also used to separate genetic material from bottled bees into genes.^[9]
• The Breeding Chamber, which breeds bees safely. You supply the two parent bees, their breeding items, power and empty cages.^[10]
• The Catcher, which catches bees flying over it if you load it with cages.^[11]
• Genetics: bee attributes such as productivity and temper can be moved from one bee to another with a gene on a honey treat.^[12][13]
• The Honey Generator, which burns honey to produce power.^[14]

Productive Bees builds on vanilla bees, so a little vanilla bee knowledge helps here. The early game comes down to a short chain: catch bees, give them a proper home, then process what they make. Here is the order I'd go in.^[2]

Find a vanilla bee nest

Your first job is finding a vanilla bee nest to get honey bottles and honeycombs. You need the honey bottles to craft Bee Cages, and the honeycombs for your first hive.^[2]

Craft Bee Cages

The Bee Cage is how you move bees back to your base. Right click a bee with an empty cage to catch it, then right click the filled cage on the ground to release it. Keep a few on you whenever you travel, in case you spot an interesting bee.^[2][15]

4× Bee CageMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any plank

Honey Bottle

any plank

Recipe id: productivebees:bee_cage

One craft gives you 4 cages.

Build an advanced hive

Once you have enough honeycombs, build an advanced beehive. Its GUI lets you see which bees are inside and take out what they produce. Hive bees need to live in an advanced hive to produce resource combs, so this is the real start of your setup. Unlike the vanilla hive, it needs no campfire to harvest, and you can move it with the bees still inside without silk touch.^[2][5][17]

There are many wood variants of the advanced hive. In this pack, the Advanced Canvas Beehive (Advanced Canvas Beehive) has a stonecutter recipe:^[16][17]

Advanced Canvas BeehiveMod recipe

Stonecutting

Recipe id: productivebees:stonecutter/acacia_canvas_hive

Add an expansion box

An expansion box raises the hive's bee capacity from 3 to 5 and lets you install upgrades. You can place it on top of or next to the hive, and each hive takes only one. The Canvas Expansion Box is also made at a stonecutter in this pack:^[16][17][18]

Canvas Expansion BoxMod recipe

Stonecutting

Recipe id: productivebees:stonecutter/acacia_canvas_expansion_box

Get Honey Treats

The Honey Treat calms angry bees and makes baby bees grow up faster. Later you can combine it with genes to pass traits between bees. In this pack it is made in the bottler:^[16][19]

Honey TreatMod recipe

Bottler (productivebees)

Recipe id: productivebees:bottler/honey_treat

Breed and process

Some bees can only be found in other dimensions or obtained through breeding. Use JEI to look up the breeding recipes, so you know which bees you need to find. When your hive starts filling with resource combs, put them in a centrifuge to extract the resources.^[2][9][20]

Productive Bees is mostly machines and hives wrapped around bee entities. This section covers how the pieces connect: hives, upgrades, the centrifuge and bottler, and the genetics gear. Where the sources do not give a number, I leave it out.^[2][9]

Advanced hives

The advanced hive is the vanilla hive upgraded. It does not need a campfire nearby to be harvested, and you can break and move it with the bees still inside, no silk touch needed. Its GUI shows which bees are inside and lets you take out what they produced.^[17]

An expansion box raises the bee capacity from 3 to 5 and is what lets you install upgrades. You can place it on top of or next to the hive, and each hive takes only one.^[17][18]

Resource combs only come from bees living in advanced hives. Hive production is a recipe type of its own in this mod, so you can look up what a bee makes.^[5][16][20]

Powdery Comb, PollensMod recipe

Advanced Beehive (productivebees)

Recipe id: productivebees:bee_produce/creeper_bee

An example of a hive production recipe: this one gives a Powdery Comb.

Hive upgrades

Upgrades go into hives and some machines, and they all start from the upgrade base. For hives, the sources list these:^[21]

• BaBee: a small chance that the bees inside breed and produce offspring on their own. Bees that cannot breed normally do not work with it.^[21]
• Productivity: more combs per trip. You can install several.^[21]
• Speed: the bees spend less time inside the hive.^[21]
• Filter: right click a bee to add it to the filter, and only listed bees can enter the hive. Put the filter in a crafting grid to clear it.^[21]
• Range: raises the working range of Farmer and Collector/Hoarder bees by 1 per upgrade, from the default of 4.^[21]
• Teleport blocker: bees that can teleport no longer do so while living in that hive.^[21]
• Gene sampler: extracts a small sample of the pollinating bees on each visit. Several can share a hive for a better rate.^[21]
• Comb block upgrade: bees produce full comb blocks instead of honeycombs.^[21]
• Simulator: bees stay in the hive and their flower trips are simulated, which is better for server performance.^[21]

Simulated hives and feeding slabs

With the simulator upgrade, the bee's flower block or a feeding slab holding flower blocks must sit at the foot of the hive. It goes right below the front, without blocking it.^[21]

A simulated hive only has one flower block position, so a feeding slab is a good fit. It holds 3 item blocks and lets up to 3 different bees work in the hive. Lumber and Quarry bees feeding from it produce from a random item in the feeder. You can honeylog the slab to give bees regeneration.^[22]

Special hives and nests

The Dragon Egg Hive is made for Draconic bees and does not support upgrades. In the End they need no flowers because they absorb draconic essence from the air. Anywhere else they need another pollination source. They can live in a normal advanced hive too, but they will not produce dragon breath there.^[23]

Nests each hold one solitary bee. Breaking one picks it up with the bee inside, no silk touch needed. Crafting a nest with itself clears out the bee and any eggs. To repopulate an empty nest, right click it with a honey treat to start the repopulation cooldown.^[24]

Centrifuge and bottler

The centrifuge turns resource combs into resources and honey. It holds 10 buckets of liquid, which can be pumped out, and it also pushes fluid into any fluid storage block placed next to it. The Powered Centrifuge runs on FE for a higher processing speed. A speed upgrade also raises operation speed in the centrifuge and the incubator.^[9][21]

The bottler fills bottles with honey and other fluids. Pump honey into its side, or put it next to a centrifuge and it fills automatically. That makes a neat chain: combs in, honey out, bottles filled.^[25]

Honey TreatMod recipe

Bottler (productivebees)

Recipe id: productivebees:bottler/honey_treat

The bottler also has recipes, such as the one that makes Honey Treats.

The pack tweaks what the centrifuge gives. The salty comb recipe is changed by the pack and returns Salt Dust and Wax. The pack also adds its own centrifuge recipe for a Nether Star Shard and Wax.^[16]

Salt Dust, WaxChanged by the pack

Centrifuge (productivebees)

Recipe id: productivebees:centrifuge/dusts/honeycomb_salty

Changed by the pack: Salt Dust and Wax.

Nether Star Shard, WaxAdded by the pack

Centrifuge (productivebees)

Recipe id: ftb:productivebees/centrifuge/honeycomb_nether_star

Added by the pack: Nether Star Shard and Wax.

Breeding, catching and growing

• Breeding Chamber: breed bees safely. Feed it the two parent bees, their breeding items, power and empty cages for the offspring. Speed upgrades make it faster.^[10]
• Catcher: load it with cages and it catches any bee flying over it. A flower or feeding slab on top attracts bees. It takes three upgrades: BaBee (only baby bees), Filter (only listed bees) and Range (more area, several allowed).^[11][21]
• Incubator: speeds up baby bee growth. Put the BaBee in a cage and insert it with honey treats. It can also infuse an egg with a bee type gene to make a spawn egg, and only the type gene is used.^[26]
• Honey Generator: burns honey for power. Honey can be piped in, or you can add bottles, blocks and buckets in the GUI. A Productivity upgrade lowers honey use and a Speed upgrade raises speed.^[14]
• Bee Jar: a display container. Use a hopper or pipe to insert a bee cage with a bee in it.^[27]

Cages also help with placement. Release a bee on a valid flower block to set its flower position. Release it on a valid hive or nest while sneaking to set its home position.^[15]

Genetics

To collect genes, set up a bottler with a piston. Place a bee in the middle, pull the lever, and make sure the bottler has empty bottles. Throw the bottled bee into a centrifuge to separate the genes from the junk.^[9][28]

Put a gene on a Honey Treat and feed it to a bee. The bee has a chance, based on the gene's purity, to gain the attribute. You raise purity by combining two of the same gene or putting more of the same gene on one treat.^[12][13]

Attributes you can change are productivity, weather tolerance, activity (daytime, night or both), endurance and temper. Bees can also apply effects to nearby players. If you have a pile of gene samples, the Gene Indexer combines them for you. It needs a redstone signal.^[12][29]

Keeping it fast

Bees are entities, and their pathing and AI are the biggest cost. Make sure every bee has a home and its flower block, and keep enclosures small so they do not wander off. The simulator upgrade avoids having the bees in the world at all. If many centrifuges are running, you can turn off comb rendering in config/productivebees-client.toml.^[30]

Productive Bees progression is about moving up through bee types. You start with bees you find in the world, move on to hive bees that make resource combs, and finish with bees that need other mods' machines. The tiers below follow the in-game guide and the in-pack recipes.^[3][4][5]

Tier 1: solitary and wild bees

Solitary bees spawn from solitary nests in the overworld. Wild bees also live in nests, but they will happily move into a hive, and they live mostly in the nether and the end. These are your starting stock for breeding.^[3][4]

• Crystalline Bees live in nether quartz nests in the nether.^[31]
• Ghostly Bees live in soul sand nests in the nether, and Glowing Bees live in glowing nests in the nether.^[32][33]
• Magmatic Bees live in nether brick nests in nether fortresses.^[34]
• Ender Bees live in end stone nests on end islands. Draconic Bees are rarely found in obsidian pillars on the main end island.^[35][36]
• Slimy Bees live in slimy nests in swampy biomes.^[37]

Tier 2: the advanced hive

Hive bees only make resource combs inside an advanced hive. Unlike the vanilla hive, it needs no campfire, and you can break it and move it with the bees still inside, no silk touch needed. An expansion box raises the bee capacity from 3 to 5 and lets you install upgrades.^[5][17]

Advanced Canvas BeehiveMod recipe

Stonecutting

Recipe id: productivebees:stonecutter/acacia_canvas_hive

The canvas variant of the advanced hive is a stonecutter recipe.

Canvas Expansion BoxMod recipe

Stonecutting

Recipe id: productivebees:stonecutter/acacia_canvas_expansion_box

The matching expansion box is also a stonecutter recipe.

Once the hive has an expansion box, upgrades are worth adding. The productivity upgrade increases the combs a bee produces per trip, and you can install several. The speed upgrade shortens the time a bee spends inside the hive. The BaBee upgrade gives bees a small chance to breed on their own.^[21]

Tier 3: breeding up the ladder

Most hive bees are bred from solitary bees and other hive bees. Some come from giving a bee a specific item instead. The in-game guide says all bee recipes and flower requirements are in JEI. These are the chains the guide spells out:^[5]

• Redstone Bee: Glowing Bee and Chocolate Mining Bee.^[38]
• Lapis Bee: Redstone Bee and Blue Banded Bee.^[39]
• Diamond Bee: Ender Bee and Lapis Bee.^[40]
• Emerald Bee: Slimy Bee and Diamond Bee. Experience Bee: Emerald Bee and Lapis Bee.^[41][42]
• Iron Bee: Crystalline Bee and Ashy Mining Bee. Gold Bee: Crystalline Bee and Mason Bee.^[43][44]
• Blazing Bee: Magmatic Bee and Nomad Bee. Coal Bee: Blazing Bee and Leafcutter Bee. Obsidian Bee: Magmatic Bee and Sweat Bee.^[45][46][47]
• Ancient Bee: convert a Diamond Bee by feeding it a block of netherite.^[48]
• CreeBee: feed TNT to a vanilla bee. Prismarine Bee: obtained by fishing in an ocean biome.^[49][50]
• Skeletal Bee and ZomBee move into an advanced hive left empty in the dark. Feed a wither rose to a Skeletal Bee to get a Withered Bee.^[51][52][53]

The breeding chamber lets you breed in a safe environment: give it both parents, their breeding items, power and empty cages. The centrifuge turns combs into resources and honey.^[9][10]

Tier 4: bees from other mods

The pack ties the later bees to its other mods. Many recipes take a configurable bee and give back a configurable bee together with a Productive Bee Spawn Egg. The machine that does it depends on the bee:^[16]

• Mystical Agriculture covers the inferium and imperium bees through infusion, and the awakened supremium bee through awakening.^[16]
• Applied Energistics 2 makes the redstone crystal bee with a transform recipe, and Extended AE makes the entro bee in the crystal assembler.^[16]
• Ender IO makes the soularium bee by alloy smelting, and Occultism makes the iesnium bee with spirit fire.^[16]
• Oritech makes the fluxite bee in the fragment forge. The pack also adds a pulverizer recipe for the same bee.^[16]
• The pack changed the iridium bee recipe, which runs in a canning machine from FTB Industrial Contraptions, and the cobalt bee recipe, a shaped crafting recipe with no Tinkers machine involved.^[16]

Pack-specific combs

The pack adds two centrifuge recipes of its own. One gives a Nether Star Shard from Mystical Agradditions plus Wax. The other gives Raw Niobium from LTX Industries plus wax.^[16]

Nether Star Shard, WaxAdded by the pack

Centrifuge (productivebees)

Recipe id: ftb:productivebees/centrifuge/honeycomb_nether_star

Added by the pack.

Raw Niobium, WaxAdded by the pack

Centrifuge (productivebees)

Recipe id: ftb:productivebees/centrifuge/honeycomb_niobium

Added by the pack.

The pack also changed the centrifuge recipes for the salty, plastic and cinnabar combs. They give Salt Dust and Cinnabar Gem from FTB Materials, and a Plastic Sheet from Oritech. The recipe dump marks them as altered, so rely on the in-pack versions rather than the mod's defaults.^[16]

Plastic Sheet, WaxChanged by the pack

Centrifuge (productivebees)

Recipe id: productivebees:centrifuge/materials/honeycomb_plastic

Changed by the pack.

Productive Bees connects to the rest of the pack mostly through the centrifuge. Many of the pack's resources have their own centrifuge recipe, so a comb from the right bee gives you an item from another mod, plus Wax every time. A few bees can also be made by handing a specific item from another mod to a bee.^[16]

Centrifuge recipes by mod

• Mystical Agriculture: separate centrifuge recipes give Inferium Essence, Prudentium Essence, Tertium Essence, Imperium Essence, Supremium Essence and Awakened Supremium Essence. There are also recipes for Prosperity Shard and Soulium Dust.^[16]
• Mystical Agradditions: one recipe gives Insanium Essence. The pack adds a second one for Nether Star Shard.^[16]
• Powah!: there are recipes for Blazing Crystal, Niotic Crystal, Nitro Crystal, Spirited Crystal, Energized Steel and Raw Uraninite.^[16]
• Ender IO: one recipe gives Grains of Infinity and another gives Soularium Nugget.^[16]
• Applied Energistics 2: one recipe gives both Fluix Crystal and Fluix Dust.^[16]
• EvilCraft: one recipe gives both Dark Gem and Crushed Dark Gem.^[16]
• IntegratedDynamics: one recipe gives Crystallized Menril Chunk.^[16]
• Refined Storage: one recipe gives Quartz Enriched Iron.^[16]

What the pack changed or added

Some centrifuge recipes are not the mod's own. The pack changed the ones that give Salt Dust, Plastic Sheet, Cinnabar Gem, Chromium Nugget and Raw Titanium. These tie the bees to FTB Materials and Oritech, so your outputs here are the pack's version, not the mod default.^[16]

The pack also adds two centrifuge recipes of its own. One gives Raw Niobium from LTX Industries, and the other gives the Nether Star Shard mentioned above. Both also give wax.^[16]

Raw Niobium, WaxAdded by the pack

Centrifuge (productivebees)

Recipe id: ftb:productivebees/centrifuge/honeycomb_niobium

Added by the pack: a centrifuge recipe that gives Raw Niobium and wax.

Bees made with items from other mods

Four bees are made by giving an item from another mod to a bee: a Fluix Pearl from Applied Energistics 2 for the Fluix bee, a Dark Block from EvilCraft for the Dark Gem bee, a Prosperity Block from Mystical Agriculture for the Prosperity bee, and a Soulium Dagger from Mystical Agriculture for the Soulium bee. These are mod recipes, not pack changes.^[16]

Farming for Blockheads

The mod's dupe blacklist block tag lists the fertilized farmland variants from Farming for Blockheads: healthy, rich, stable, healthy stable and rich stable. It also lists the Industrial Foregoing hydroponic bed. All of these entries are optional, so they only apply when the other mod is present. The sources here do not describe what the tag does in practice.^[54]