Bee Genetics: Modifying Bees to have Desirable Traits

Since the change to Binnie's Mods, breeding bees to have desirable traits is somewhat different to previous versions of Extra Bees. The genetic mod may seem a bit long winded, but in my opinion, is a lot easier to use once you have the systems set up.

In my last blog post, I showed you all how I set up my system, but I didn't really explain how I modify my bees once I've got those little larvae all grown up. I fully intend to do a video or two accompany these posts, I'm just searching around for a nice free recorder that I like the look of. (Coincidently, if anyone has any to recommend, please let me know in the comments.)

Anyways, back on task to our bees. In my bee factory, I have an area where I keep alvearies for the sole purpose of production. Before bees are allowed in this area, they need to have the following properties-

1. Low fertility of 1 x drone; so I don't have the hassle of filtering off excess drones
2. Nocturnal
3. Rain tolerant
4. Rocks pollination; they will happily use the concrete walls of my bee tower
5. Cave dwelling; they'll tolerate having their alveary's covered
6. As slow a pollination speed as I have available
7. As fast a production speed as I have available
8. The longest lifespan I have available; not a huge deal when they're automated, but something I like to do.

So, as I've shown you before, here is my hatchery alveary:

The first six of my desired traits can be found within a basic rocky bee. To obtain the other two desired traits, the following process is applied:

• Place rocky bees in alveary with hatcheries.
• Obtain rocky larvae.
• Inoculate at least 7 larvae with desired traits.
• Hatch larvae in incubator.
• Take original rocky princess, and pair with the 7* new drones with the desired traits.
• Repeat cycle of mating princess with inoculated drone until the princess obtains all the desired traits.
• Squash all mixed trait larvae in the genepool, so all hatchery blocks are now clean and empty.
• Replace the now "converted" princess in the alveary
• New larvae now act as a base larvae for all other species.

*Through my experimentation, no more than 7 drones have been required to convert a princess fully to the new traits.

My base bees have the desired traits, so as result, as do the larvae. My best production speed is "fast" and best lifespan is "long." 

When it is time to convert a species so that it is ready for the factory, I first obtain the species serum, as explained in yesterdays post. Then, my base larvae are inoculated with the species serum.

I have managed to breed each of the tinted bees, and now I am going through each species so that it can be put to work in the factory. I don't plan on using the bleached bee much, as I have plenty of bonemeal that can be used as dye, but the completest in me wants to make sure I have the full set. Otherwise, this wall wouldn't look half as cool:

I digress. Once all the base larvae have been converted to the correct species, they are then hatched in the incubator.

The new drones are then put in my breeding alveary, which is situated outside.

All of the mixed-trait offspring have been processed into DNA.

This princess has gone through 6 cycles, and now possesses the following traits:

The bees are now ready for putting into the factory to be automated.

The double pipe method means multiple sets of bees can be "programmed" and switched out as desired. I don't intend to have every tinted bee running all the time, just be able to produce the desired dye on demand.

The view of the factory floor.

The grey and purple block on the floor is a vacuum chest from enderIO. Highly recommended for catching those bees that pop out of buildcraft pipes every now and then.

I hope that you found this tutorial useful, I had such nice feedback from my last post, I hope this one is as well received! If you have any questions, or would like to see other bee tutorials, let me know in the comments and I'll gladly see what I can do!