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Rusty’s Retirement isa chill farmingand automation sim where you take care of a farm at the bottom of your monitor. Despite it’s chill vibe and slow pace, thisindie gameis not lacking in complexity and it has a few systems to learn.
One such system is beekeeping, which operates completely differently from farming crops. Though it’s separate from farming, can be quite lucrative and is a lovely aesthetic addition to any farm. If you’re interested in raising bees and making lots of Biofuel (and Spare Parts) in the process, this guide will give you the ins and outs of beekeeping in Rusty’s Retirement.
How To Start Beekeeping
To start beekeeping, you’ll first have to build Forbic, the beekeeping robot, a home. This will cost 200 Biofuel and 6000 Spare Parts, and doing so will recruit him to Rusty’s farm, which will unlock the beekeeping tab (signified by a little picture of a bee) and allow you to build Bulb Hives, the game’s version of beehives, which house Bulblets, the game’s version of bees.
The beekeeping tab also houses everything related to beekeeping, or Bulb-keeping, as it were. These are theBulb Hives, variousBerry Bushes, theButterfly Cage, andBerry Bots.
What Are The Benefits Of Beekeeping?
Keeping Bulb Hives and Berry Bushes gives you a slow and steady source of Biofuel from the hives filling up with nectar from the bushes.
Collecting every kind of Berry also gets you a shiny new achievement!
They also give you Berries,which work like your regular crops in that they give Spare Parts when harvested and Biofuel when loaded into the Biofuel Converter.
How Do Bulb Hives Work?
Bulb Hives release Bulblets, which automatically fly to Berry Bushes, decorative flowers, and bushes (even mechanical ones!) within 12 tiles and collect Nectar. Once full, they fly back to their hive to deposit the Nectar before flying out to repeat the process.
Remember to check your Bulb Hives once in a while. They take a long time to fill up, but once they do, they won’t operate again until you click on them!
This process increases a gauge underneath the Bulb Hive until it is full, which will bemarked by an exclamation point.Once it reaches this state, it is full and will no longer accept Nectar until emptied, so clicking on a full Bulb Hive will signal Forbic to empty it and produce Biofuel.
How Do Butterflies And Berry Bushes Work?
Berry Bushes produce Berries, which for the most part work like the other crops. However, there are some important differences; Berries are much slower to produce, but the Berry Bushes that make them will never die and stay in place until they are demolished orpicked by Berry Bots.
All Berry Bushes cost 50 Biofuel and 500 Spare Parts.
Berries take a long time to produce, but this time is shortened every time the associated Berry Bush is visited by Bulblets collecting Nectar. Every time this happens, the time to production is shortened by five seconds.
Since it takes so long to produce Berries, you won’t need too many Berry Bots to collect them. Just make sure there’s a Storage Unit or the Barn nearby so Berry Bots don’t have to travel far to deposit their bounty.
Butterfly Cages produce butterflies, which like Bulblets fly to nearby Berry Bushes,but they do not collect Nectar (and therefore generate Biofuel) like Bulblets. Nonetheless, they’re still useful since they produce many butterflies which will speed up your berry production,making them good to buy when Bulb Hives start getting expensive.
How To Get New Berry Bushes
You unlock new Berry Bushes similarly to how you unlock Crops; when you meet the amount of berries harvested to unlock the next Berry Bush, it will show up in green on your selection of Berry Bushes. Click on it to reveal what it is, and if you mouse over undiscovered Berry Bushes, you can see the required harvest to unlock it.
