After the humans, bees became the dominant species on Earth, and now they’re advanced enough to become space-faring. Explore planets, build technologies, and gather resources before it’s time to hibernate!
What Is Apiary?
Apiary is a worker-placement game for 1 to 5 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about 60–90 minutes to play. It retails for $65 and is available in stores and directly from the publisher. There isn’t anything thematically that would make it inappropriate for younger players, though there’s certainly enough complexity, plus some twists from traditional worker-placement games, so I would only recommend it for very experienced kids if they’re under 14.
Apiary was designed by Connie Vogelmann and published by Stonemaier Games, with illustrations by Kwanchai Moriya.
Apiary components. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Apiary Components
Here’s what comes in the box:
— Game board
— 5 Hive mats
— 5 Docking mats
— 5 Dance tiles
— 9 Dance tokens
— 15 Planet tiles
— 20 Explore tokens
— QueenShip miniature
— 20 Faction tiles
— 15 Frames
— 40 Farm tiles
— 30 Recruit tiles
— 29 Development tiles
— 30 Carving tiles
— 20 Worker Bees (4 per player)
— 15 Player tokens (3 per player)
— 35 Hibernation tokens (7 per player)
— 25 Fiber tokens
— 25 Pollen tokens
— 25 Water tokens
— 15 Wax tokens
— 12 Honey tokens
— 45 Seed cards
— 5 Player Aid cards
— Teaching guide (not pictured)
— Solo Game Components:
— 14 Automa cards
— 1 Automa docking mat
— 1 Automa Gained Worker Strength token
Worker bees in five player colors. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The workers look a bit like dice with bees stuck in them: each one is a cube with four sides numbered 1 to 4, and the other two sides have a bee head and tail (with some portions of wings) sticking out of them — though technically it’s not an actual bee, but a bee-shaped spaceship. The worker is turned to indicate its strength, so it’s right-side-up when it’s on strength 1 but with the other strength values it will be on its side or back. The workers are in the player colors and have a wash that accentuates the edges and makes it easier to read the numbers since they are otherwise unpainted.
The QueenShip, ready to explore. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The QueenShip is also a plastic miniature, significantly larger than the workers, and also looks like a bee-shaped spaceship. It is just plain grey plastic with a transparent base that elevates it off the board — I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t have a wash on it at least since I generally don’t paint my miniatures, but since it’s the only grey miniature at least you don’t have to worry about getting it mixed up with anything else. (I will note that the player colors — red, green, blue, yellow, and light grey — may not be color-blind-friendly, so you may want to check my photos to see if the five colors are easily distinguished if that is an issue for you.) The other thing about the colors is a personal quibble: it’s always odd to me when the player colors overlap with other significant colors in a game. Here, four of the five player colors are the same as the four hex tile types, and three of them are the same as the resource colors, but there’s no connection. I’d prefer to have different colors when possible so that players don’t assume that those resources or tiles have any special significance for their player.
Enjoy the art before you cover it up with all the tiles! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The game board itself is fairly large, a six-fold that is double-sided so you have some additional spaces for higher player counts. It’s nicely laid out with clearly marked sections for the different places you can send workers, a scoring track around the outside edge, and a Queen’s Favor track along the bottom. Although a lot of Kwanchai Moriya’s background illustration gets covered up once you put all the tiles and cards onto the board, you can still see some parts of it that help create the atmosphere (or should that be vacuum?) of the space bees.
A few of the recruit tiles, which give bonus abilities tied to specific actions. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
One note about those space bees, though: I’m a big fan of Moriya’s work in general and I love the little helmet-wearing bees in Apiary, but I have to wonder: how is it that these bees are able to survive in the vacuum of space with just the helmet and no suit? Also: since insects breath through spiracles along the thorax and abdomen instead of through their mouths, it feels like it would be more accurate to have the big bubble around the rest of the bee’s body, with only its head exposed. But, hey, we’re talking about giant intelligent bees so I guess I shouldn’t worry about scientific accuracy too much.
The Hive mat and frames are cardstock, allowing you to extend your hive off the edges of your mat. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The rest of the components are solid but nothing unusual: square planet tiles and a lot of hexagonal tiles that you’ll be able to build onto your own hive. Everyone has a hive mat, which is cardstock rather than cardboard, because you can add the frame pieces to expand it and then build hex tiles onto those as well. I did like the fact that the hives are all named after actual hive types: the Warre, the Langstroth, and so on. The resource tokens are wooden and have unique shapes, and they also have distinct colors (though the wax and honey are both a metallic gold color).
Box insert, and the removable resource tray. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The box insert is nice with specific wells for most of the components — it holds things in place well enough that things don’t tend to spill and shift around too much even if you store the box vertically. I did have a little trouble right at first understanding where to put all of the hex tiles since I was expecting hex-shaped wells to stack them, but they stand vertically in the rectangular wells. I particularly like the little square tray that comes out of the insert for the resources, so you can just pull that out for setup. I was surprised that there isn’t a special well for the QueenShip, though, and the box doesn’t have the usual Stonemaier map of components printed on the side.
Large double-sided player aids. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The player aids are large cards that capture a lot of useful information in one place. One side has a lot of text: a reminder of what to do on your turn and at the end of your turn, and then lists of ways you can score points both during the game and at the end of the game. For new players, it’s a good reminder of all the ways you can score points because there are so many. The other side of the player aid shows all of the various icons used in the game — one important distinction is that the solid black bee shapes represent the actual workers, and the grey bee shape represents the hibernation token.
There’s also a teaching guide included, kind of like a one-sheet reference guide that has a little more than the player aid, and provides reminders for setup, basic gameplay, the various locations you can send workers, and a few other important things to remember. You still need to read the rulebook, but if you’ve played the game then this is probably enough for you to communicate the important parts when teaching the game to new players, or getting a refresher if it’s been a little while since your last play.
How to Play Apiary
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to score the most points by building your hive, gaining the favor of the Queen, making carvings, among other things. Any number inside a little pink flower is a point value — some points are awarded during play, and some at the end of the game.
Apiary 5-player main board setup. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Setup
Set up the main board, using the side matching your player count, and place all of the tiles on the board:
— Face-down exploration tiles with randomly placed face-up exploration tokens, and the QueenShip in the bottom corner of the Explore grid.
— Farm, recruit, and development tiles in rows in the Advance section, with the stacks placed at the end
— Carving tiles in the Carve section; unused tiles are returned to the box
— Dance tiles in the Dance section, with the dance tokens placed in a stack
— Seed cards shuffled and placed in the Research section
— Frames set to the side of the Grow section; extra workers are also placed here
— Resources set nearby as a supply
— Players put markers at the 0 space of the Queen’s Favor track at the bottom; score markers are placed on the track in turn order so that the first player has 0 points, second player has 1 point, etc.
Player starting setup. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Each player gets the components of their player color: a docking mat, 4 workers, 3 markers (cubes), 7 hibernation tokens. They also get a hive mat and a choice of 2 faction tiles. The faction tile will tell you what workers you start with in your active pool, and any leftover workers are placed in the Grow section of the main board. Two of your markers are placed on the tracks of the main board, and the third goes on your docking mat for now.
A few faction tiles. The ones marked with a green star are less complex and recommended for newer players. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The faction tile is shaped like three connected hexes: one has the name of your faction and its unique ability, along with your starting workers, and the other two hexes have storage spaces for resources. On those storage spaces, some of the resources may be circled in green and highlighted — those are your starting resources, which are placed on those spaces. Your faction tile is placed on the hive mat in the space indicated.
For an advanced variant, you can deal out faction tiles and hive mats, and then take turns drafting them.
Gameplay
On your turn, you will either place a worker onto the main board to take an action, or retrieve all of your workers. Unlike many worker placement games where occupied spaces cannot be used, Apiary lets you bump other workers to take their space. The Explore and Advance locations have connected spaces — if you bump a worker, it moves to the second space (potentially bumping a worker there), but bees in the second space will be bumped back to their owners.
The Hibernation Comb gives you different rewards when you hibernate, as well as points for controlling a section of the comb. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
If your bee gets bumped out of the location entirely, there are a couple of possibilities. If it is already at strength 4, then it’s time to hibernate: place a hibernation token in the Hibernation Comb area and get the corresponding reward, and then place your worker back in the supply in the Grow section. Otherwise, you have two options: increase its strength by 1 and put it in your active pool, or leave its strength as is and put it in your landing area.
When you retrieve workers, all workers on the board and in your landing area will return. Any strength 4 bees must hibernate as above, and all other bees that returned may collect income from one of your farm tiles, and then must increase their strength and go to your active pool. (Each bee must collect from a different farm.) Bees that are already in your active pool do not collect income or increase strength.
Now we’ll get into the actual actions on the board. For most actions, the strength of your worker bee will affect the strength of the action, with strength 4 bees getting a bonus of some sort.
Move the QueenShip to explore new planets and harvest resources. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Explore
When you explore, you may move the Queenship based on the value of the worker you placed, plus the value of the worker that got bumped to the second space (whether it is your worker or not!). If it’s an unexplored planet, collect the exploration token and get its reward, and then reveal the planet.
Exploring a planet allows you to plant resources on it. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Most planets have some number of resource spaces on them — each time you explore a planet, you may add one basic resource (not wax or honey) to the planet from the general supply, and then you collect all of the resources shown on the planet (taken from the supply, not the planet). For instance, the next player to visit Caryopa (shown above) can add one more resource to it, and then they’ll gain 2 water plus whatever they just planted.
Some planets, like Malva shown above, have a bonus action printed at the bottom. If you explored with a strength 4 bee, you may use the bonus action of the planet you visit.
Farm tiles allow you to store more resources, and can also be used to collect income when you retrieve bees. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Note that your resources must be placed into storage spaces in your hive, either on your faction tile or on farm tiles. You may freely rearrange resources to make space (since some spaces can hold two different resources), but any resource that doesn’t fit is discarded to the supply at the end of your turn. For each resource you must discard, you move one space on the Queen’s Favor track.
Advance to add hexes to your hive. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Advance
Advance is how you expand your hive with three types of tiles: farms, recruits, and developments. The stronger the bee placed here, the more columns you may buy from, but you may still only buy one tile per turn. The column you may buy from is based on the strength of your bee plus the space below (which has a +1 printed on it in case it is empty). I’ll explain a bit more about the specific tiles later, but briefly: farms cost some combination of fiber and water, and give you storage spaces for resources and income when you retrieve workers; recruits cost pollen and typically give you bonus effects when you perform certain actions; developments cost wax and give you a one-time-use effect. After buying a tile, slide tiles to the left to fill in gaps and then refill from the stacks.
Two hive mats showing different rewards for building on the spaces. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Tiles are placed onto your hive mat, and must be adjacent to an existing tile. When you place a tile, you gain whatever is printed on the hive mat in that space.
If you send a strength 4 worker to Advance, you earn 3 points.
Grow to get more bees or add frames to your hive. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Grow
To get more workers or expand your hive, you’ll need to Grow. The bee you place here determines how much strength you may spend. It costs 1 strength and 1 pollen to gain a strength 1 worker from the supply (which goes to your active pool), and it costs 2 strength and any 2 basic resources to add a frame. Frames add four more spaces to your hive for building. Each one has two spaces that will give you seed cards when they’re built, and if you fill the whole frame by the end of the game it’s worth 8 points.
Upgrading the Ana faction gives you more points for the recruit tiles adjacent to the faction tile. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Using a strength 4 bee lets you upgrade your faction tile, flipping it over, which will make it more powerful in some way.
Carvings are objectives that award end-game points. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Carve
Carve is a special action that can only be taken by a strength 4 bee. You may spend honey to take one of the carvings and add it to your hive. Carvings award end game points, things like 3 points per recruit or 4 points per frame in your hive. Some carvings score based on things that are adjacent to them, so then placement matters more. All of the available carvings for the game are on the board right at setup — these do not refill after you purchase one.
