You probably seen the rumours. The baffled questions of "Why did my princess disappear?" and "Where did my bees go?" then the replies.... "Oh, they die off after 200 generations or so..."
After running these bees in a chunkloaded area for best part of a month, it's pretty clear that they haven't popped their clogs after 200 generations, as some have alluded to.
1296 generations
1018 generations
1273 generations
1249 generations
1256 generations
So, what can we conclude has happened to all the missing drones and princesses?
Ignoble stock will die off eventually.
Natural pristine stock will do well provided the area is chunk loaded.
Carefully genetically modified pristine stock (i.e those made with the highest quality serum) will do well provided area is chunkloaded.
Poorly genetically modified stock (those made with poor quality serum) may be subject to changes in their genetic code that makes them unstable and may die off... who knows?!
You may have further issues with using bees that do not have "standardized traits" so that the drones all have different traits and won't stack.
So, for successful bee factories:
They have to be chunkloaded otherwise you may lose your bees for no apparent reason.
Use only pristine stock.
Genetically modify bees with only the highest quality serums.
If your having trouble standardizing traits, reduce the fertility to low so that there is no issue of drone stacking or overspill.
