Industrial Apicultural Acclimatiser and Drone Domestication Station

The Industrial Apicultural Acclimatiser and Drone Domestication Station (IAADDS or Mega Apiary) is a UV tier multiblock for gathering massive amounts of combs from thousands of bees simultaneously. The Mega Apiary replaces the need for most industrial apiaries or Alvearies because it simulates the perfect environmental conditions for all bees inside the machine, accelerates bees 64x, applies 8 production upgrades, and has a built-in genetic stabilizer upgrade. There is even an optional swarmer mode to produce ignoble princesses instead of combs. The only genetic traits that actually matter are flower type and production speed. The capacity of the Mega Apiary is determined by the number and tier of the energy hatches and therefore the tier of the glass. Royal jelly is optional and boosts the total amount of combs per operation.

The Mega Apiary has one tiered component. The glass tier limits the tier of the energy hatch. The dirt inside the Mega Apiary may be grass instead, the water source blocks may be distilled water instead, and the wood planks/slabs can be any type of wood--not just oak. The water must be placed manually inside the structure. Multi-Amp and laser energy hatches are not supported, but there can be multiple regular energy hatches for increasing the total capacity of the machine. Use the Multiblock Structure Hologram Projector to visualize/build the structure with subchannel "glass" to specify the tier of the glass.

Assuming the player does NOT have access to the UV Component Assembly Line (CoAL) casings, a Mega Apiary requires 9.17k americium, 3.12k neutronium, 4.86k royal jelly, 3.31k pollen clusters, 512 honeydew, 64 tree pollen, and 5.95M (L) honey to build. Therefore, it is much cheaper to build the Mega Apiary for the americium bee before the UV CoAL casings which cost 103k americium.

Structure

• Controller: Front center, 9th layer
• 455 Dirt or Grass
• 190-200 Bronze Plated Bricks
• 185 Wood Plank
• 121 Any Tiered Glass (Tiered)
• 34 Water
• 24 Alveary Fan
• 20 Alveary Heater
• 20 Alveary Hygroregulator
• 18 Alveary
• 12 Alveary Stabiliser
• 9 Apiary
• 9 Wood Slab
• 0+ Flowers (depends on bee)
• 1+ Energy Hatch: Any casing (LuV+)
• 1 Maintenance Hatch: Any casing
• 0+ Input Bus: Any casing
• 1+ Output Bus: Any casing

The flower(s) can be placed on any of the two spaces above the dirt/grass blocks inside the machine. The flowers can be anything that the bees require, such as cobblestone for the "rocks" flower type or a dandelion for the "flowers" flower type. The dirt cannot be replaced with sand for planting cacti--place the sand on top of the dirt instead.

Wallsharing

Mega Apiaries may wallshare each of their sides to save on casings, glass, alveary components, and buses/hatches. However, the Mega Apiary is very powerful and scalable so there is very little need for a second, unless using a separate machine specifically for swarmer mode.

The Mega Apiary has three modes, listed below. Switch modes in the configuration menu in the controller, or by right-clicking the controller with a screwdriver. Note that bees (QUEENS ONLY) may be inserted or extracted directly, regardless of the current mode, in the GUI of the controller while the machine is disabled. The operating mode does not output any drones.

• Input - Inserts queens into the Mega Apiary via the input bus. Does not consume power.
• Operating - Gathers combs or ignoble princesses from the bee(s). Consumes 2A of power per energy hatch.
• Output - Extracts queens from the Mega Apiary via the output bus. Does not consume power.

Also in the configuration menu is an option to switch between normal mode and swarmer mode. The normal mode is for gathering combs and the swarmer mode is for producing ignoble princesses from royal jelly, much like the swarmer Alveary upgrade. See the tables below for the full list of differences between the two operating modes.

Notice that the capacity of the Mega Apiary in normal mode scales with the tier of the energy hatch(es) and therefore the tier of the borosilicate glass. More specifically, the capacity increases by 1 for every 1A of LuV power with a fixed 5 seconds per operation. Swarmer mode is the exact opposite. The capacity is fixed at 1 slot while the time per operation is halved with every voltage tier.

The bees themselves are accelerated 64x, have 8 production upgrade applied, a genetic stabilizer upgrade applied, and are always satisfied with the environmental conditions. The only genetic traits that actually matter are flower type (for building) and production speed. Lifespan, pollination, fertility, territory, and effect all have no effect inside the Mega Apiary.

A savvy beekeeper may think to build an entire Mega Apiary just for royal jelly. Unfortunately, there are two reasons why that is not a very good idea. The first is that royal jelly cannot be used to make more royal jelly; there is never a net-positive amount of royal jelly if the output is looped back to the input bus. Second, the power cost of sustaining an alternate Mega Apiary just for imperial bees is absolutely not worth the bonus that they provide. Instead, use that power to increase the capacity of the original Mega Apiary.

The following are some recommended bees for keeping in the Mega Apiary that are not completely overshadowed by the Space Elevator. Those marked with an asterisk (*) only produce combs inside the Mega Apiary.

• Americium* for americium
• Indium for improved indium production
• Cryotheum for cryotheum dust
• Sunnarium for glowstone dust and sunnarium dust
• Lapotron for lapotron dust, energium dust, and lapis
• Drake* for draconium and awakened draconium
• Stickyresin for sticky resin
• Salt for salt, rock salt, saltpeter, and borax
• Xenon* for xenon
• Fluix for fluix crystals
• Shadow Metal for shadow metal
• Void for void metal
• Kevlar* for kevlar
• Infinity* for infinity (needs DTPF)
• Cosmic Neutronium* for cosmic neutronium (needs DTPF)
• Dragon Blood* for dragon blood (needs DEFC)

Even with only useful bees, there are still a lot of unwanted byproducts that pile up and clog a storage system. It is highly recommended to have a partitioned void cell on a subnetwork with the output bus to void specific combs or byproducts before they reach the main storage network.