Beekeeping with the Bee Box (2024)

Using Bertie's Bee Box to Get Honey and Use Bees

Beekeeping with Bertie's Bee Box in The Sims 4 Seasons Expansion Pack

Beekeeping is a new activity in The Sims 4 Seasons Expansion. Using Bertie's Bee Box you can extract sweet, useful honey from the hive and establish a bond with your bees. These helpful insects will assist you in making higher quality produce, finding collectibles, wooing other Sims, and attacking your enemies. This guide covers all the mechanics of the bee box and its strong impact on the Gardening Skill.

Video Format

This guide is offered in video format! You'll learn a bit more in the text here as far as how bees get enraged, but the video covers almost everything you need to know about Beekeeping in Seasons!

Getting Started

Purchase Bertie's Bee Box from the Buy Mode sort by room > Outdoors > Outdoor Activities tab, where you'll also find handy gardening objects. When you first place them, you'll have no relationship with your bees and are very likely to get stung when interacting with them. Accept this - the Uncomfortable moodlet from a sting is only 2 hours, and you can overcome it by having an otherwise happy Sim do the bonding. Only one sting at a time counts, so you can keep it up if you get stung.

Beekeeper Suit

Bees get Enraged when they haven't been cared for and when mites have infested them. Bond with your bees regularly and avoid disturbing them (the mean interaction) to keep your bees calm.

At any time, you can change into the beekeeper suit by clicking the bee box. This special protective gear doesn't only protect against bee stings, but also hot weather. It counts as cool/hot weather clothing depending on the season so your immunity to temperature changes is increased. What is more, you're much less likely to get stung while wearing it. You can't bond with bees while wearing it, nor collect swarm (more on these below) but you can collect honey without fear of a sting, and apply mite treatments. This last thing is the most important use of the beekeeper suit since the bees are likely to be angry due to the mites.

Caring for Bees & Bee Mood

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Mites will infest the hive. Use mite treatment ($15) to clear it up and put them back in a good mood. The longer they're infested, the more enraged they become. You can be stung up to 5 squares away from the bee box, so keep them happy!

You can't do much with bees at first. Use Bond with Bees while NOT wearing a Beekeeper suit in order to get your bees used to your Sim and begin to establish a friendship. You can see the meter when you mouse over the bee box - their mood is also stated, along with the current levels of honey. Get the friendship meter to 20-30% and you'll unlock some cool abilities. The higher it goes, the less likely you are to be stung when they are calm.

While it isn't really the case, bees kind of have a social need. They gradually get angrier and angrier if you do not interact with them for a time. At first they're irritated, which increases the chance they sting you, but then grow enraged and a sting is near-certain. By interacting with your bees daily, you can keep that friendship meter up, and give them a sort of 'recently bonded' moodlet that keeps their mood Calm. Bees will sting you while calm sometimes but not nearly as often as they will when irritated or enraged. Getting your bees off enraged is a matter of using bond a few times, to get them calmed down. You'll have to endure the stings! This is the penalty for letting them get so upset. Sims who disturb your bees will also raise their anger (but get a playful moodlet in the process).

Bees get infested with mites from time to time, fairly regularly, actually. You can clear this for just $15 Simoleons. Using the mite killer will bring the bees' moods down. Having bees infested for a long time makes them really angry. However if you stay on top of it, interact with bees often and make a schedule, your bees will stay calm the majority if the time. Doing this is important, especially if you use Bees to fertilize a wide area.. Your Sim will get interrupted frequently as the bees will sting you when 5 or so squares (seen in build mode) away from the bee box. Calm bees don't really do this very often.

Honey Production

Honey is a warm or cold weather cure-all that gives Sims immunity to temperature for 4 hours, along with a +1 Happy moodlet.

Bees are dormant in Winter, partially active in Spring and Fall, and fully active in Summer. While the rate is cut during partially-active seasons, during Summer bees produce one jar of honey every 8-10 hours. So by 32-40 hours you can get up to 4 jars. Hovering over the bee box you can see how much honey is produced. If it is partially full it's at least 1 jar, full means 3-4. The quality of honey that is made is directly tied to your relationship status with the bees. If they're enraged and have mites, honey quality drops. Keep them healthy and happy for Excellent honey that is worth $60 a jar. This means during Summer one bee box can generate up to $180-200 Simoleons a day (since it takes 30ish hours to fill).

Honey Use

You can collect honey from the bee box or sell it directly. I don't recommend this - Honey's great for your Sims. Honey is an amazing substance that never rots, and it's perfect for the summer and winter in Seasons. Why? Because it completely removes temperature related debuffs and grants immunity. Just eat it from your Sim's inventory and they'll get an instant happy moodlet which clears all negative temperature effects. This can absolutely save a Sim near-death, so keep some on hand if you go fishing far away from home on a super hot day. Honey can also be baked into cake and a tea that grants a focused buff. These also give you the benefits of honey.

Beekeeping - Bees' Pollination and Germination

The Bee Box boosts plants with a fertilizer effect that extends 5 squares in all directions. If you can count up to 5 large blocks from the Bee Box, it's in range.

Bee boxes are perfect for gardening. They affect plants up to 5 squares away in all four directions. You can cover a huge area (about 20 plants) with one bee box so long as you plant around it. With 2-3 boxes strategically placed you could cover 60 plants. The bee box lend an aura that grants a small fertilizer bonus to all nearby plants, which stacks with regular fertilizer. This leaves you free to use your best fertilizer on your best plants. All of this happens automatically, just care for your bees so they don't slow down the gardening process (the animation of being stung gets tedious if you're caring for a large garden with angry bees around). So the drawback is there - you have to work with the bees to make this a good thing, but your reward is honey and free fertilization bonuses that will evolve your plants to Perfect albeit slowly.

Collect Swarm

Click the bee swarm in your Sim's inventory to have them fetch you a random collectible! You can make some side money this way.

Once you're at around 30% friendship with your bees, the Collect Swarm ability unlocks. This special will put a swarm of bees in your Sim's inventory. They only stick around about 5 hours, but you can do some cool things with them. Click another Sim to use the bees to send a romantic message, attack, or cheer up a Sim (makes them confident). You can also cheer up yourself with the bees. But, I've saved the best for last. The new Send to Fetch Gift ability will send your bees to find something and bring it back. You can use 3-4 swarms in a row to have them locate collectibles for you. The types they bring aren't really wide (like capsule contents and fossils) but you can still get super lucky. What is more, the swarms are on a short 3 hour cooldown. If you had 6 bee boxes, used the 6 swarms, by the time you were done you might be able to harvest more swarms soon. Taking care of 6 bee boxes is fairly repetitive though, let me tell you. It's too bad you can't beekeep automatically but that's the way it is.

Seasons Expansion Guides

Seasons Cheats
Expansion Features
Weather Machine
Patchy the Straw Man
Beekeeping
Father Winter
Scouting (Children/Teens)
Flower Arranging Skill
Gardener Career

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