An Overwinter Procedure for Honeybees
When winter settles over your beehive home, the pace of life in the hive slows to a crawl. The surviving workers cluster together around the queen and gently buzz their muscles to maintain a safe internal temperature. The hive burns through its honey reserves and prepares for spring.
Step 1: Keep the Hive Fed
In order for the hive to survive the winter, the number of filled surplus honeycomb cells must equal or exceed the population of the hive. Empty one surplus honeycomb cell per adult worker in the hive.
If this condition is not met, the hive dies, leaving an empty comb for some other swarm to find in the spring. If the players have previously overseen a successful Swarm, then play may resume from the location of the swarm's hive. Otherwise, the game ends.
Step 2: Keep the Hive Warm and Clean
The members of the hive must spend the winter in close proximity to stay warm, so defecation and waste must be managed through rare “cleansing flights”. On particularly sunny and warm winter days (at least 54°F or 12°C), bees make short skipping flights outside of the hive. Players are invited to add details of what they see in the brisk winter scene in the immediate radius around the hive. Aside - maybe there’s a spark table of prompts for this.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to prevent the spread of parasite infestations over the winter. If any of the hive cells are infested, then the infestation spreads to the next available brood cell. If there are no healthy brood cells, the infestation spreads to the next available honeycomb.
Step 3: Keep the Queen Happy
It’s hard to avoid anyone in the hive during the winter. If her scouts and workers are not meeting her ambitions, the Queen will demand an explanation. This phase represents the court drama of planning for the coming year of growth.
If the Queen Bee’s disposition over the winter is positive, each player may choose one:
- Draw her Out: Spend the winter talking with the queen to understand the nature of her ambition and how she relates to the rest of the hive. Earn a Queen’s Mark
- Celebrate with Her: Spend the winter in reverent praise of the Queen’s leadership through a challenging year. Earn Social Standing
- Speak as Peers: In as private a moment as possible, speak freely about any challenges the hive has faced due to her leadership. The next season that the Queen’s ambition is not satisfied, you may prevent a worsening of her disposition.
- Request a Favor: You may request one specific action of the Queen during the next calendar year.
If the Queen Bee’s disposition over the winter is negative, choose one:
- Make a Promise: Express sincere contrition at your failure to meet her ambition. Move her disposition in a positive direction, but if you fail to meet the promise in the next year then lose all Social Standing.
- Confront her with Reality: Attempt to convince the Queen that her leadership is causing problems for the hive. Lose all Social Standing in exchange for resetting her disposition to neutral.
- Take Shelter in the Heating Shell: Avoid any confrontation with the disappointed Queen this season and lose one Social Standing
- Conspire Against Her: Pledge yourself to raising a usurper Queen to displace the current Queen. If you fail to nurture a Queen within the next year, you are exiled from the hive for your sedition.
Step 4: Non-Player Hives
Other hives in the environment are assumed to function competently, which gives them a 30% chance of not surviving the winter. For each hive that the party has encountered, roll 1d6+1d8. On a result of 6 or fewer, the hive fails to survive until spring.
If the player hive has actively inhibited or harmed the rival hive during the past year, subtract 1 from that hive’s survival roll. If the player hive has actively cooperated with or supported the rival hive during the past year, add 1 to that hive’s survival roll. Players may choose to donate surplus honey to an allied hive to add 3 to that hive’s survival roll.
If the hive dies, shuffle the corresponding Ace back into the Nectar FLOW deck.
Notes
This was a clarifying exercise - I had been wondering what tools might be useful to differentiate player bee populations during the other seasons, and things like Social Standing and personal relationships with the Queen feel like they create some useful design space.
As a first order thought, I think Social Standing will have a mechanical relationship to the voting and trick taking rules that are coming together for the Waggle Dance phase, while Favors and Marks will act more like metacurrencies in other phases of play. I'd been really dragging my heels on fleshing out this basic outline of feed the hive, talk to the queen, but this feels gameable and having Under Hollow Hills-style moves/plays for the winter phase should be a lot of fun. Let me know what you think!