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Beekeeping, honey & hive care

Updated October 26, 2026 · Maintained by the site team

Support a hive's workers, forage and access before expecting honey or new colonies.

Reviewed build: 0.1.190.146 FULL FIXED R4 · October 26, 2026. Built against RimWorld 1.6.4871. DLC requirements are listed below.

Set up the system

  1. Choose the hive available at your current research level and inspect its colony status.
  2. Provide suitable forage and a reachable working position.
  3. Assign a capable Animals handler. The documented direct harvest requires Animals 3 and an undrafted pawn.
  4. Use the hive's harvest command when ready; harvesting is a bare-handed task rather than knife work.
  5. Check honey type before using it in food or brewing recipes.

Current rules and limits

  • Full, active, non-toxic GMO colonies have a documented daily 5% expansion chance when nearby healthy forage supports a nest.
  • Expansion takes three workers from the source; a chance is not a guaranteed new hive each day.
  • Shogashu accepts its listed safe honey types and excludes toxic honey. Inspect the actual recipe filter.
  • The full Bio-Arbor story questline remains proposed work.

Read the hive before harvesting

Inspect workers, colony activity, forage, harvest readiness and the handler’s route. The documented direct harvest is bare-handed and requires Animals 3 and an undrafted pawn. Adding a knife does not resolve an unavailable bare-handed action.

GMO expansion is a chance

A full, active and non-toxic GMO colony can roll a 5% daily expansion chance when nearby healthy forage supports a nest. An expansion moves three workers from its source. Several days without expansion can therefore be normal rather than proof of a broken system.

Honey in recipes

Inspect the honey definition and the recipe filter before brewing or feeding. Shogashu accepts its listed safe honey inputs and excludes toxic honey. Do not infer that every GMO honey has the same food or medicinal effect.

Source builds: .177, .181, .184 and .190.19. These references describe packaged beta behavior; focused tests do not establish complete live-game validation.

Check your build.

These references describe the reviewed beta build. Check the installed package and later release notes for changed recipes, values, dependencies and compatibility. A documented fix is not a substitute for live colony testing.

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