Apiary Station
alaindustrial:apiary_drone_station
Summary
The Apiary Station is a beekeeper's machine two blocks tall. Below is the base with the honey tank, the slots and all the connections; on top is the "hive" with four hexagonal honeycomb cells, one on each side. Each cell takes an Apiary Drone. When a hive with a Hive Attachment written on the Apiary Map fills up completely, a drone flies out, docks with the attachment, fills its jar and comes back — the honey is poured into the station's tank and from there goes into pipes. The bees stay in the hive the whole time and do not get angry.
Mini-example. Place the station base and put the station hive on top of it. Insert two drones into the cells and an apiary map with attachments written on it, run an LV cable and a pipe to any face of the base. As soon as any hive fills up, a drone rises from the nearest cell.
Look: "honeycomb balconies" — drone pads inside the upper block on two levels — and a glass column of honey; the "Bumblebee" drone has a jar for an abdomen and a stinger.
What it is made of
| Part | Block | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Base (lower) | apiary_drone_station | the machine: EU/FE buffer, honey tank, map, drone and comb slots; all ports |
| Hive (upper) | apiary_drone_hive | four honeycomb cells the drones fly out of; no ports |
| Apiary Drone | item apiary_drone | inserted into a cell; does not wear out |
The two halves are two separate items (decision of 2026-11-07): the hive is placed on the base, the pair assembles itself (an assembly click), and the base sets the direction. A hive with no base under it is just a decorative block.
Taking it apart
| What was broken | What happens |
|---|---|
| Upper hive | the station stays with the status "No hive on top"; the tank, slots and drones are intact (they are in the base); drones in flight return to their slots at once, and the honey from their jars goes into the tank. Place the hive again and work resumes |
| Lower base | as with the mod's other machines with a tank (Honey Centrifuge, Fermenter, Polymerizer): the slots (drones, map, combs) spill out as items, the honey in the tank and the EU/FE charge are lost; so is the honey in the jars of drones in flight. The hive remains a decorative block |
Only the Portable Fluid Tank can keep a liquid inside an item — the station is not one.
Energy
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Role | consumer |
| Tier | LV, input up to 32 EU/FE/t |
| Buffer | 4000 EU/FE |
| Flight | 160 EU/FE + 4 EU/FE for each block of distance to the attachment (220 EU/FE at 15 blocks) |
| Idle | 0 EU/FE — with no full hives the station sleeps |
| Reserve | for each drone on its way the station holds that flight's cost in the buffer — a new flight takes only the free remainder |
Energy is supplied to any face of the base, including the bottom; the upper hive does not accept a cable. EU/FE is charged at the moment of docking, and only if the hive is still full; before a flight the station only checks that the buffer holds enough for that flight. A drone that arrives at a hive that has already been emptied returns empty and costs nothing.
Work cycle
- Every 20 ticks the station goes through the map's entries: the attachment is in place, the hive is in a loaded chunk, in the same dimension, no farther than 15 blocks, its honey level is 5, and no other drone of this station is flying to that hive.
- If there is such a hive and a free cell with a drone, the tank has room for 250 mB (counting the jars of drones in flight), the comb slot has room and there is enough EU/FE for the flight — a drone flies out of the free cell nearest to the hive (on a tie: north, east, south, west).
- The drone flies round trees, leaves and walls: at launch the station searches a route through open cells from the hive to the attachment, the same search the town's builder drones use, and the drone follows it nose first, rounding the corners. With no route it keeps the old arc of
clamp(1.5 + 0.2·d; 1.5; 4.5)blocks. The flight time follows the route's length. - At the attachment the drone docks (40 ticks): it lowers its stinger vertically into the attachment's funnel from above, the attachment's jar drops in steps 5 → 0, and the drone's abdomen fills up. At the end of docking the station checks the hive again: still full — the level resets to 0 as under smoke, EU/FE is charged, 250 mB of honey goes into the abdomen and a comb chance is rolled; not full — the drone returns empty, and the attachment takes the level from the hive right away.
- The drone returns to its pad; pouring takes 20 ticks — honey into the tank (the honey column rises), the comb into the comb slot.
The reset touches only the hive's state: the bees are not released, do not get angry and keep their routine (the vanilla, the same as when harvesting over campfire smoke).
Four drones fly at the same time, each to its own hive. On its pad a drone sits facing out. In flight it buzzes like a vanilla bee, and the sound travels with it. Right-clicking the station's hive opens the station's screen, and the outline covers both blocks.
Stops
No stop loses honey, combs or drones.
| Status | When | How it resumes |
|---|---|---|
| No hive on top | the upper half has been removed | put the hive on the base |
| No apiary map | the map slot is empty | insert a map; if the map is taken out during flights, the drones return and no new flights start |
| No drones | all cells are empty | insert a drone |
| No power | the buffer holds less than the cost of the nearest flight | by itself, when energy arrives |
| Tank full | no room for 250 mB | by itself, when pipes take the honey away |
| Combs full | the comb slot is full | by itself, when pipes take the combs away |
| Waiting for full hives | no hive on the map is full | by itself |
| Working | at least one drone is in flight | — |
Apiary Drone
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Item | , stack of 1 |
| Wear | none — paid only with the station's energy |
| Speed | 11 ticks per block of path, at least 26 ticks per leg (like the Garden Drone) |
| Docking | 40 ticks |
| Insertion | by hand through the screen; hoppers and pipes neither insert nor take drones |
The drone is a drawing by the station's renderer, not an entity: it cannot be hit, and it does not load chunks. A Garden Drone cannot be inserted into a cell.
Fluid
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Tank | 10,000 mB, liquid honey only |
| Accepts from outside | nothing — honey comes only from the drones |
| Outputs | from any face of the base — to a pipe in "extract" mode, to a pump |
Inventory
| Slot | Accepts | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Map | Apiary Map | 1 |
| Cells 1–4 | Apiary Drone | 1 each |
| Combs | honeycomb (output only) | stack |
An item pipe takes the combs from any face of the base.
Interface
- Energy bar, honey tank bar (volume on hover).
- Map slot, four cell slots (north, east, south, west — as on the block), comb slot.
- List of the map's entries: coordinates, distance and state of each ("waiting", "full", "drone out", "too far", "not loaded", "other dim.", "no jar").
- Status line with the reason for idling.
Block Properties
| Field | Base | Hive |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | full 16³ cube | non-solid box: drone pads inside the block on two levels; not an occluder (R-PHY-05,) |
| Hardness | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| Blast resistance | 6.0 | 6.0 |
| Tool | pickaxe | pickaxe |
| Drop | the block itself; slots spill out | the block itself |
A piston does not move the station — otherwise one half would ride away from the other. The render box covers all four flights (15-block radius).
Recipes
All three are made on a crafting table from LV parts:
| Item | Made from | Recipe unlocks with |
|---|---|---|
| Station base | Machine Casing, Electronic Circuit, tank, Iron Plate ×6 | Machine Casing or tank |
| Station hive | honeycomb ×2, planks ×4, Iron Plate ×3 | honeycomb |
| Apiary Drone | copper ingot ×4, iron ingot ×2, Electronic Circuit, glass bottle — like the Garden Drone, but with a bottle instead of a hopper | honeycomb or Electronic Circuit |
Progression
- LV; after the Garden Drone and the Honey Centrifuge.
- Honey from the tank goes to the Bottling Machine, the Polymerizer, and the mod's tanks and pipes.
- The Workstation skills ("Extended Round", "Swift Drone") do not apply to the apiary drone.
Related
- Hive Attachment — the drone's dock.
- Apiary Map — which hives to serve.
- Garden Drone Station — the model for the drone and its flight.
- Workstation — the model for a two-block machine.
- Liquid honey, Honey Centrifuge.
- Tasks: , epic .
Crafting
Shaped Crafting
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Apiary Station