Rules on beehives?

[FreedomFiend]

I've made a character who is a beekeeper and uses Travelling Beehives (Advanced Class Guide) to support his business. Problem is, the rules do not specify how much honey or wax the beehives produce, only what happens when you break them. Currently, my GM and I have been working off the principle that my character has enough honey that's convenient for a situation, but it's rather annoying as we're not sure if he has too much honey or not enough. Is there a rule I'm missing, and if not, does anyone have any ideas on how we can put a more concrete number on how much honey these hives produce?

[Claxon]

There are no rules for it specifically.

I would say you have an amount of honey that would generate an amount of money equal to your profession(beekeeping) skill check for your weekly Job check, per the normal skill rules.

[Name Violation]

You could always use the crafting rules...

[Pizza Lord]

The others are right. There's no rules for it. You and your GM have to come up with a fair option that doesn't let you basically print money. I think your GM will have to choose a believable and realistic amount of honey that can be produced per week based on the size of your hive. I am not going to look up honeybee production online right now.

Once you get a fair target weight you could go with Name Violation's suggestion of using the Craft rules. For ease of example, let's say your GM lets one traveling hive produce 1 jar of honey per week (1 gp, 1/2 lb. Again, I don't know the size of your hive or whether that's even believable). He could say you need to spend one-third each week, make your beekeeping check (even if it's Profession) and if successful, you get the honey (and assume in this case the honey is a tradegood and sells at 1 gp for you.) The paid cost would be to account for you buying jars or replacing damaged parts of the hive (since you may be over-harvesting from the 'small amounts' permitted by the item description) or making sure you have purchased a few proper and tasty plants, like clover or whatever to make your honey special (you need to make sure your bees can get at pollen). Better rolls might get you extra honey or something.

Again, there's no real rules for it though. You just have to keep it reasonable, you shouldn't be able to, for instance, just say you're spending 100 gp (1/3rd) and producing 300 gp. worth of honey (basically 150 lbs) with one, two, or even ten hives, they probably couldn't produce or hold that much (and as a GM I would enforce that weight if you were trying to adventure or move them around).

I think the item's purpose is to allow the use of the Profession (beekeeper) skill by giving you a believable way to be tending bees as you move around and are offering your services to farmers and herbalists and such by allowing your bees to pollinate their crops and plants rather than as a honey-production method, similar to how a herder or farmer would make money with their Profession check and that they might believably have access to milk or cheese or butter from cows or goats that they're tending, but that the production of those products isn't necessarily intended as a result (other than story or narrative purposes).

[djdust]

I'd use the profession rules to determine how much product your bees produce, perhaps with a +2 bonus per hive?

Collect 7000 gp worth of wax and build yourself a golem :)

[Judy Bauer]

Pizza Lord wrote:

I think the item's purpose is to allow the use of the Profession (beekeeper) skill by giving you a believable way to be tending bees as you move around and are offering your services to farmers and herbalists and such by allowing your bees to pollinate their crops and plants rather than as a honey-production method, similar to how a herder or farmer would...

This, plus occasional bee-swarm combat mayhem. ;-)

Regarding production, for a beehive staying in one place, a one-basket hive could produce... maybe 20–40 pounds of honey plus 2–4 pounds of wax in a year, depending on conditions. (You could maybe supplement that with specialty products like propolis.) Not bad!

BUT...
• Most of that honey is needed to feed the bees during the winter, unless you're ok with replacing your colony in the spring.
• Opening your hive with any frequency makes the bees less productive; they spend more energy on defending the hive and less on foraging. (In modern beekeeping they recommend monthly check-ins.)
• Your hive is also less productive if you're traveling—you'll have to seal the bees inside so they can't forage while you're on the move or they won't find you when they return from foraging, plus unsupported comb is susceptible to damage from bumps and jolts.

Tl;dr: It'd take a lot of traveling hives to support you if you're trying to model the real world.

All that said, it's more important to make beekeeping a fun and viable profession for your character than to accurately model real-world beekeeping—let that be your guide. :-)

[bhampton]

Pizza Lord wrote:

I think your GM will have to choose a beelievable and realistic amount of honey that can be produced per week based on the size of your hive. ...Again, I don't know the size of your hive or whether that's even beelievable)...I think the item's purpose is to allow the use of the Profession (beekeeper) skill by giving you a beelievable way to be tending bees as you move around and are offering your services to farmers and herbalists and such by allowing your bees to pollinate their crops and plants rather than as a honey-production method, similar to how a herder or farmer would...

Fixed for you :D

Also, I second that the travelling hive's purpose is to pollinate crops rather than focus on honey production. I agree with Judy's comments regarding production, but selling your services to crops (especially orchards) can be just as valuable as selling honey as a trade good.

[ENHenry]

Before this thread goes all abuzz with swarms of suggestions from the forum hive-mind which could break the economy, I would also suggest the standard profession rules for economic returns - after all, the focus should be adventure and not a 9-to-5 grind making the most money! Your GM should not feel like you're pollen a fast one at the table in some sort of fly-by-night scheme.

In the end, don't let too much attention to bee-tail drone out the sounds being made by a fun game being played.

(Is that enough puns to make a punster Jelly, I wonder?)

[The Sideromancer]

ENHenry wrote:

(Is that enough puns to make a punster Jelly, I wonder?)

Some of them certainly stung.

[bhampton]

ENHenry wrote:

Beefore this thread goes all abuzz with swarms of suggestions from the forum hive-mind which could break the economy, I would also suggest the standard profession rules for economic returns - after all, the focus should be adventure and not a 9-to-5 grind making the most money! Your GM should not feel like you're pollen a fast one at the table in some sort of fly-by-night scheme.

In the end, don't let too much attention to bee-tail drone out the sounds being made by a fun game beeing played.

(Is that enough puns to make a punster Jelly, I wonder?)

Missed two :D

[DungeonmasterCal]

The only real rule on beehives I can come up with is don't stick your head in one.