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
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
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 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.
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.
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 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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
Using a strength 4 bee lets you upgrade your faction tile, flipping it over, which will make it more powerful in some way.
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.
Convert
If you need to trade resources, go to the Convert area. The strength of your bee determines how many conversions you can do, trading out seed cards or exchanging resources.
Below the printed conversions, there are some dance tiles and each one of these also represents a conversion that you can take. However, at the beginning of the game, they are blank. When you send a strength 4 bee to Convert, you may “teach” a dance if any are still available. Take the stack of dance tokens and choose whichever ones you want to fill in the dance, and then mark that dance with your player token. Anyone may now use this dance as a conversion, and when other players use it, you score a Queen’s Favor.
Research
Research lets you draw seed cards. The higher the strength, the more cards you get to draw, but you only get to keep one. Seed cards have three uses: you may always discard a card as a basic resource. You may play seed cards at the beginning or end of your turn for the instant ability at the top of the card. Finally, you may plant seed cards under your hive mat for end-game points.
To plant a seed, you must use a strength 4 worker on Research, and then you may tuck a seed card from your hand under the bottom of your hive mat so the seed portion is showing. At the beginning of the game you are limited to planting 2 seeds, but adding frames to your hive can increase this up to 4.
Play continues clockwise, with each player placing a worker or retrieving workers on their turn.
Game End
The game ends when the Hibernation Comb is full, or when one player has placed their 7th hibernation token. Everyone, including that player, gets one more turn, and then the game ends.
In addition to points scored during the game, you now add the following:
- 8 points each for filling your hive and frames
- Points as listed on all of your farms, recruits, and developments
- Points for meeting the conditions on your carvings
- Points for fulfilling your planted seeds
- Points for your position on the Queen’s Favor track
- Points for having the most tokens in the sections of the Hibernation Comb
The highest score wins, with ties going to the player with more active workers.
Apiary is GeekDad Approved!
Why You Should Play Apiary
Apiary is an eye-catching game with a fun sci-fi theme about evolved bees, and I was surprised to learn that it was Connie Vogelmann’s first game. It’s an intriguing spin on worker-placement games, and with the addition of Kwanchai Moriya’s illustrations and Stonemaier Games’ expected polish, it’s earned a spot on my shelf of favorites.
Despite the length of my “how to play” section, the majority of Apiary feels fairly straightforward: you put workers onto places on the board, you take the (relatively simple) actions presented there, and when you run out of workers, you spend a turn to get your workers back. Most things work the way you’d expect them to, and the iconography is largely intuitive. Development tiles with the lightning bolt icon happen immediately, there are arrows that mean “pay X to get Y,” building on a location with a bonus gives you that bonus. Those mostly simple individual actions, though, add up to a complex, satisfying system.
The twist comes in the bumping mechanism, which is less common in this type of game. On your turn, you can go anywhere on the board, regardless of where other players have their workers—you just bump them out of the way and they make room. In some cases, you want other bees present, because they’ll bump over to the secondary spot and add to the value of your action. And, unlike many worker placement games, you often want other players to bump your workers out, because then you get them back without having to retrieve them, and they go up in strength to make your next action more powerful.
The flip side of that is that now players have to consider whether it’s worth giving an opponent a worker back when they take an action. If you’ve run out of workers and I know you’ll need to take your next turn to retrieve them, do I want to bump one of your bees and give you an extra action? Or, if your bee is at strength 4, do I want to give you the chance to hibernate already? You can also bump your own bees, of course, which can often buy yourself more time between retrievals or get yourself closer to that Hibernation Comb.
How quickly you burn through your workers and send them into hibernation is also an important tactic. The Hibernation Comb has various bonuses, so there can be a bit of a race to get the good spots. More importantly, there are bonus points awarded for having the most (and sometimes second-most) tokens in each section, so there’s an area control game happening there. However, hibernation is also what triggers the end game—aging and hibernating your workers accelerates the game, and may not leave you enough time to pursue other things like expanding your hive or fulfilling your carvings and seeds requirements. Also, whenever you hibernate, you lose a worker, so then you’ll have to spend some turns using Grow to get new workers.
The one mechanic that my gaming group hasn’t mastered yet is using the landing area. When your worker gets bumped, you have the option of leaving it at its current strength and putting it in the landing area on your docking mat. It’s not available to be used for an action—all it does is sit there until you take a turn to retrieve, at which point it ages, collects income from a farm, and then goes back into your active pool. The idea is that if you’re planning to retrieve workers anyway, this gives you another bee that can harvest from a farm, so if you’ve built out some strong farms in your hive, this lets you make more use of them. However, most of the people I’ve played with are usually too excited to get that extra action and would prefer to delay retrieving by a turn, which means we probably aren’t making the most of the potential that the farms hold.
With all the different types of actions and ways you can get points, Apiary gives players a lot of flexibility in what strategies to pursue. My group hasn’t really pursued a farming strategy, but I’ve definitely seen effective ways to use recruits to upgrade favorite actions, lots of research to get seed cards for their powerful effects, or using development tiles for their bonuses. (The Royal Jelly development tile, shown in an earlier photo, lets you reactivate two adjacent development tiles, which is extremely powerful if you’ve planned out a good spot for it.) Exploring early in the game gets you those exploration tokens, and also lets you control what resources the planets are producing. Plus, generating a lot of resources means you may be discarding them for Queen’s Favor, which can award a whole lot of points as you approach the end of the track.
As you become more familiar with the game, you’ll get better at looking for synergies among your hive mat bonuses, your faction ability, and the available carving tiles. Carvings are one of the hardest tiles to get: not only do you need a strength 4 bee to take one, but they also cost honey, the most expensive resource in the game. But it’s important to look over them right from the start, because that way you can start planning for which carvings you may want to acquire and try to work toward their requirements ahead of time. The farms, recruits, developments, and seed cards are in a random market so you don’t know what may or may not be available later on, but you can see all of the carvings up front.
The game is listed at 60 to 90 minutes, though your first game or two may take significantly longer as you’re getting used to it (and particularly at 5 players), but as players get more experienced, it will speed up. I like the way that it’s competitive, but generally not antagonistic: you can’t block a location or mess up somebody else’s hive, though there can be a race for particular tiles on the board if multiple people want the same thing. It makes for a cool puzzle, trying to figure out how best to build your system, and I like the way that the frames let you build your hive basically in any direction, overflowing your hive mat.
If you enjoy worker-placement games and the puzzle of tile-laying games, check out Apiary! There’s also an expansion, Expanding the Hive, released in September, which adds a little more of everything (hive mats, seed cards, tiles) without actually adding new rules, and as a bonus it was designed to fit in the existing box insert. I’m looking forward to trying that out soon!
For more information about Apiary, visit the Stonemaier Games website.
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
