Bee epidemic!

[+Colibri]

Attention all beekeepers!

I heard grim news about a bee epidemic spreading this way. The disease spreads mostly in places with a lot of beehives in one place, so recreational beekeepers have little to fear. But bee farming can become a problem as this virus spreads easily in areas with a lot of beehives, commonly making the bees simply produce no honey or wax. It is expected that this virus will reach our shores sometimes this week.

+Colibri the Coordinating Administrator, for the Excelsior Daily

[Rote]

Bee Flu Virus reports from the Excelsior Department of Health.

The Bee Flu Virus seems to not be transferable to Humanoid Populations. However, if you spot an orc called Gragnok, I would steer clear!

It is unknown at this point of the Bee disease is affecting our plant farms at this time.

[+Colibri]

Well i just heard that this flu will mostly hit hives that are packed together. Spacing the hives a few tiles won't help... But those recreational beekeepers don't have anything to fear, as the virus mostly attacks large clusters of hives.
A big beekeeping farm from Jhelom just reported about a 40% drop in revenue. Small beekeepers from Minoc and Trinsic are reporting very insignificant drop in revenue, some say no drop.

[Licos]

This is interesting, especially since I just started my large scale beehive production...funny how these things work out. :/

[+Colibri]

I think it's got something to do with everyone doing large scale wax and honey production... if one breed of an organism grows too large, then sooner or later there comes a disease wiping half of the population... in a way unfortunate, but it's how nature balances things. I hope it wont happen to humans again

[NeoNightmare]

just great, the people who do mass bee's spend soo much time on them daily the cost or regents, cost of empty bottle, cost of hive tool, there hives are gonna be wiped out. there goes my hives. hope supply and demand works here, hopfully the price to sell honey and wax doubles at a vendor

[+Colibri]

No, actually the effect of this virus is just that some days the bees don't produce anything, and other days bees produce the normal amount. They get some health problems too which can be solved with a health potion tho, same as parasites... But they don't get wiped out.

[NeoNightmare]

well you have seen my setup, are they gonna be effected by the virus?

[+Colibri]

Yep i think you will some drop in production like those Jhelom beekeepers.

[Llexa]

Well, hmmmm, I just started some bees too, just a few, like 17 :P Will my bees be effected? Is there a cure maybe coming soon? Like, maybe a repellent or something you can lock down in your house, that has uses, and each day, it takes a use of the cure to protect your bees. Like, maybe you can buy it from somewhere? Would be an investment kinda cure though, b/c it would be some special vile of antitode. So for those with lots of bees, would be something they would want to have, but then the smaller bee populations, you wouldnt probably need it so much. Could even be like, you can buy 1 antidote per day or something. Just some ideas to help with this epidemic :)

And yes I agree with all beekeepers when I say that it takes a lot of money and time to take care of the lil guys, and would be sad to see them start to have a sickness with no cure :) maybe they get hit with the lazy flu, since it seems the idea is they dont produce everyday, lol.

Come on Dr. Colibri! Get in that laboratory and start creating a cure! lol :)

[NeoNightmare]

it would be interesting to have a cure, and buy a sprinkler like you can with flowers and we fill it up. the only think is i hate to see the bill for that, cause we already put soo much time into collecting items for the hive like the bottles that take 2-3 day, then the hive tools, and now this. is there any way to wipe out the epidemic before it comes?

[+Colibri]

Well if anyone believes in a higher beeing, I think that this epidemic was sent to us for the purpose for balancing out the shard... If there was a cure for it, it would cost about as much as the profit you would get when using it.

[Saffron]

Sorry if this seem a simple way but why didn't you just drop the amount of gold you get for the wax and honey . I wouldn't care if we only got 50 gold for each bit of wax as i'm saving it so I can make some bits from it I only sell honey because the cooking menu isn't the best one I have seen on a uo shard . But I will say most of my hives are now dieing and that started the day the bee epidmic post went up and it doesn't matter what I do to them they aren't getting anybetter with pot's

i'm not picking holes or having a whine moan just saying what I would do and how the change has gone for me,

[+Colibri]

Ok I guess I post a few details to inform you all that your hives aren't dieing.

Whenever a hive has a cycle, it counts the number of hives around it (2 times the range of where it looks for flowers). If that number is somewhat small, it just produces regularly. If that number is big, it then has a chance of simply not producing anything that day. The more of hives you have around it, the more chance there is that it won't produce anything in that cycle. But note that it's a per-hive per-cycle basis. The next cycle, that hive that before didn't produce anything might produce normally, and the hive that produced before might not produce this cycle.

This doesn't damage the hive itself. If you have all the cure potions on it properly, it will remain alive and almost certainly produce in another cycle.

[Licos]

Okay, so distance is a factor. What about beehives on different levels of a house? Does proximity take into effect for each level, or all levels together?