Welcome to our APICO Bee Breeding Guide. An in depth guide to breeding every bee, including tips and things to look out for.
APICO Bee Breeding Guide
As you progress you will slowly get more and more items that can help you with breeding. We would recommend setting up an area and putting the following items in it as you obtain them.
General Tips – In Depth APICO Bee Breeding Guide
A couple swarmers
- Obtained through crafting.
- Essential for breeding, while you can technically breed in an apiary the more offspring your bees produce the better chance you have for creating the new species you are after.
A Rehabeelitator
- Obtained through crafting.
- Optional but if you’re going for every bee, why not go for every conservation as well?
A Smoker
- Bought from Beenjamin requires 10 species discovered.
- We would also recommend always having a renewable source of flowers using apiaries or just beehives, you will burn through flowers quickly if you don’t.
A Heater and Cooler
- Both bought from Beenjamin require 18 and 22 species respectively.
- These are not required if you set up breeding areas in the frozen wastes and swamp area.
Beeskness
- Combine honeyrose with swarmwort.
- Any increase to fertility is good.
Pondshine
- Found in swamp.
- Keeping bees up later has them complete their cycle quicker.
Hivanium
- Combine pondshine and honeybriar.
- Same idea as pondshine.
Combristle
- Combine hivesbane and goldenrod.
- Reducing bee lifespan is very helpful when breeding.
Hivesbane
- Found in swamp.
- Some late game species require certain stats to be created so having a variety of bee stats is important.
That’s how the spawn ended up, usually 5 swarmers were found to be enough, but you can go more or less as you see fit.
Before we get into the details, here are some general notes that might help you if you’re struggling to raise a bee.
If you look at the in-game description for stability, you can get the idea from what we’ve found, and looking online, that this determines its chances of becoming a new species.
Bee requirements are checked at the end of the queen cycle, you don’t need to maintain conditions for a species to spawn all the way through, just make sure there are correct requirements when the cycle ends.
If a bee gets angry, its cycle will not progress.
Tier 1 – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Common Bee
One is given to you in the Welcome to APICO quest. More can be found in these hives around the starting island.
Tip: If you’re also looking to get every achievement, keep the quest reward bee somewhere separate from your other common bees until you’ve gotten the achievement An army of Beeatrice, it can be very annoying to get otherwise
Forest Bee
Can be found in these hives around the starting island.
Verge Bee – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Can be found in these hives around the starting island.
Uncommon Bee
Can be found in a single hive on an island to the east of the starting one (can be accessed by walking).
Tip: I found while playing that the hive also tended to spawn near the shrine though this may simply be luck. If you’re having an issue finding this hive, just try going around the east island and opening random hives.
Tier 2 – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Verdant Bee
Breed Common and Forest bees.
Special Requirement: Must be day.
Vibrant Bee
Breed Common and Verge bees.
Special Requirement: Must be day.
Drowsy Bee
Breed Forest and Uncommon bees
Special Requirement: Must be dawn or dusk.
Misty Bee – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Breed Common and Verge bees
Special Requirement: Must be raining.
Tip: Make sure to check that your queens are ok with rain.
Additionally as this is your first time needing it to rain to get a bee species you might struggle a bit to get the timing right. If you are you might want to wait until you can get the swamp totem before breeding this so that you can summon rain when they are close to done.
Dream Bee
Breed Common and Uncommon bees
Special Requirement: Player must be sleeping in a bed (I assume this means all players in multiplayer).
Murky Bee
Can be found in the swamps in these hives.
Tip: Bring a smoker and some tier 1 flowers when looking for these guys, they are the first bees you will find that need to be calmed to collect.
Muggy Bee – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Can be found in the swamps in these hives.
Glowing Bee
Can be found in the swamps in these hives.
Tip: A good way to find glowing bee hives is by going at dusk or dawn and looking for glowing hives.
Rocky Bee
Can be found inside large rocks on the main island or swamps, you will need a stone pickaxe or better to break them.
Tier 3
Regal Bee
Breed Verdant and Vibrant bees.
Special Requirement: Must be near a goldenrod.
Tip: If you haven’t already, combine Honeyrose and Beekeeper’s Delight to make Goldenrod
Worker Bee
Breed Vibrant and Misty or Muggy bees.
Special Requirement: Must be near a Honeybriar.
Tip: If you haven’t already, combine Swarmwort and Beekeeper’s Delight to make Honeybriar
Stubborn Bee – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Breed Dowsy and Murky bees.
Special Requirement: Must be dawn or dusk.
Domesticated Bee
Breed Verdant and Drowsy bees.
Special Requirement: Must be inside a building.
Tip: if you are unsure of if something counts as inside a building, press m to pull up the map, anything ‘inside’ will be brown
Hermit Bee
Breed Misty and Murky or Muggy bees.
Special Requirement: Must not have any other active bees near it.
Twilight Bee
Breed Dream and Drowsy or Glowing bees.
Special Requirement: Time must be between 1 and 4.
Tip: This is by far the tightest time requirement in the game, to make it as easy as possible you will want to breed your queens in the day, make sure they are active at night, check the time it will take for them to complete their cycle then take them out and only put them back in a hive when the time it will take them to complete their cycle will cause them to finish between 1 to 4.
Frosty Bee
Can be found in the frozen wastes in this hive.
Fiery Bee
Can be found in the frozen wastes in this hive.
Tip: When looking for Fiery bees be sure to bring a smoker and some hivesbane or honeydrop to calm them
Jurassic Bee
A single hive can be found in the frozen wastes.
Tip: When you first encounter the Jurassic bee hive it will be in a block of ice, use a heater nearby to get it out.
Tier 4 – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Crystal Bee
Breed Regal and Frosty bees.
Special Requirement: Must be near a honeycore machines and inside a snowstorm.
Tip: Honeycore machines in the game include the auto-sawmill, auto-squeezer, and auto-centrifuge and can be bought from bobbee in the frozen wastes
Ancient Bee
Breed Worker and Twilight bees.
Special Requirement: Must have a lifespan of 7.
Tip: Breed either a Worker or a Twilight bee with a Regal or Jurassic Bee that has a lifespan of 6, remove any combristle from your breeding area and add a honeybriar to get the queens up to lifespan 7. As stats can not change after the queen is created this is a case where you will need to meet the requirements when the queen is made.
Bohemian Bee
Breed Stubborn and Domesticated bees.
Special Requirement: Must have at least 10 different flowers around it.
Prolific Bee – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Breed Domesticated and Hermit bees.
Special Requirement: Must have at least 6 working hives around it.
Tip: If you already have the ancient bee you can put it to work in a hive and it will outlive any Domesticated or Hermit queens you might put into your swarmer meaning you don’t need to worry about lifespans of the 6 working hives around the swarmer.
Industrial Bee
Breed Regal and Worker bees.
Special Requirement: Must have at least 3 honeycore machines near it.
Tip: Honeycore machines in the game include the auto-sawmill, auto-squeezer, and auto-centrifuge and can be bought from bobbee in the frozen wastes
Chaotic Bee
Breed Hermit and Twilight bees.
Special Requirement: Must have a stability of 1.
Tip: The Twilight bee already has a stability of 2 so all you need to do is put hivesbane near your swarmers and check to make sure your queen did not inherit the hermits stability
Arctic Bee
Breed Stubborn and Frosty bees.
Special Requirement: Breed in the frozen wastes with an active cooler nearby.
Blazing Bee – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Breed Stubborn and Fiery bees.
Special Requirement: Breed in the swamp with an active heater nearby.
Empress Bee
Breed Regal and Fiery bees.
Special Requirement: Have 3 active smokers burning different flowers nearby.
Melodic Bee
Breed Domesticated and Twilight bees.
Special Requirement: Have a jukebox playing music nearby.
Tip: If you don’t know how to get a jukebox and a disk, try sailing the northmost part of the map until you come across a fox (unexplored areas appear as black squares).
Lightening Bee – APICO Bee Breeding Guide
Put a Hollowed Bee in the swamp while it is raining.
Note: This is by far the strangest of the methods for getting a species and we are not 100% confident in my understanding of it. What worked for we were first using the acclimatiser to make some Hallowed queens ok with rain then putting them in the swamp while it was raining and putting an active cooler nearby to ensure they were active. After a lightening strike my queens changed to lightning queens. Whether the bees need to be active or simply must exist within the swamp when lightening strikes is still up in the air. Some basic tests would indicate they do but we can’t be sure because again, this is by far the strangest method in the game.
Hallowed Bee
Can be found on the hollowed island in these hives.
Tip: In order to access the hollowed island you will need to complete grandpas guide.
Interesting fact: The uncommon bees hive is the same as the hollowed bees hive. It could be lore, or just saving on assets.
Tier 5
Sacred Bee
The sacred bee can be obtained by collecting all 6 idols and placing them in the hivemother shrine, which can be obtained by unlocking all 4 hivemother gates and clicking the gate at the bottom of the map.
Here is a list of the idols and how they can be obtained
- Forest Idol: Found in the shrine on the main island
- Swamp Idol: Found in the shrine in the swamp
- Polar Idol: Found in the shrine in the frozen wastes
- Hallowed Idol: Found in the shrine in the hollowed island
- Mysterious Idol: Bought from the Mysterious stranger who will spawn around you at night.
- Sacred Idol: Given as a reward for finding 34 bee species
Glitched Bee
When using the hivemother gates, you can randomly be teleported to a glitched area, the only way to leave is to take a glitched bee queen.
Note: This will count toward the total amount needed to unlock the Sacred Idol.
The Hivemother
Let’s add a quick extra section to dispel a rumor we’ve seen you can get the Hivemother you can’t at the time of writing this guide. JSON files containing basic data for all bee species are accessible in game files, there is no Hivemother in that file.
