Bay 12 Games Forum

First, the thing about collection I don't understand: Do the beekeepers continuously gather products from the Hive when the option is enabled, or must I constantly go in and manually make them gather the materials?

Now, the interface I am not sure about the options:

Install Colony to Hive/(Can't remember without it right in front of me)

Gather Products/Do not gather products

Is the Hive doing what the option says in the side bar, or does it begin doing that option after hitting it's key and changing what the option says in the task bar?
 For example, when it says "Do not gather products" in the side bar, is it not gathering products or is it actually gathering them?

Okay, first, as long as you have someone with beekeeping (under farming) active, they should automatically gather the products. Keep in mind though that you need jugs available for them to do it, not stone pots/barrels or anything, because they need the jugs to store the royal jelly in (and later press the honey).

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if they'll gather the items if they don't have a goods stockpile available, since that's where the honeycombs go. I'd imagine they do, and just drop the honeycombs there at the hives or something, but I'm not sure.

Second, the hives default to gathering the products. I forget what's actively displayed at that point, but if you don't mess with the settings, the dwarven beekeepers will be able to gather the products. I usually turn off gathering for about 1/3 of my hives, to let them split the swarms up and repopulate other hives.

Once you have the honeycombs gathered (and royal jelly), make sure you have a Screw Press set up, and use that to press the honeycombs. You get wax (usable for wax crafts) and a jug of honey out of that (and require a jug).

Edit: Oh, and I've never really seen a problem with cats and bees. Maybe cats kill a few of my bees now and then, but not enough apparently to make any real dent in their population.

So... my current fort just lost all but one dwarven child due to a siege, and subsequent dehydratings/going mad/etc. (Said dwarven child may have been saved due to the small blip in happiness given when he slaughtered another berserking dwarven child by smashing his fist through his brain. At age two. But I digress.)

Now though I've had my first migrant wave come in, and get settled in enough that they no longer have the flashing "X" over them. But my nobles screen remains blank, with no ability to appoint anyone (which means I can't form a militia to get rid of the last few stragglers that keep interrupting jobs, for instance.)

Will the noble ranks/ability to appoint them eventually come back for whatever reason, or am I pretty much doomed to scrub the fort and start anew?

E: Nevermind, seems to be a bug as reported in Mantis. Ugh. Guess it's time to abandon.

Have you given offerings to your home civilization? You should be able to press (c) on the noble screen to see your status on becoming the capital, and offerings are one of the requirements. (And at that point, it's not so much an "option," just the king and his retinue will suddenly show up on your doorstep saying "oh hai, new capital, gimme good rooms kplzthx"

They *might* degenerate, but if so, they do it verrrry slowly. I also have indoor refuse piles for bones and such, and have ended up with them overflowing if I've had a few too many hunters so that my crafters can't get through all the bones in time.

I have a slight problem with a few of my stockpiles (v .07). Dwarves wont restock them. I have about 200 logs sitting in my depot and my wood stockpiles is empty. I tried moving the stockpile, deconstructing the depot, etc. Same goes for my lignite stockpile. Lots of idle haulers. No current burrow orders. I'm puzzled.

Any chance you turned your hauling off for stone and wood in your (o)rders screen? it's pretty easy to do by accident. :/

Other than that... make sure that your stockpiles are accessible (you didn't accidentally remove ramps/stairs leading to them), and that they're not full of stone (I know some people hide it with... dfhack? Or something.)

And the ore is dug out (ie, you didn't just get the notification that you found it, because it's in the wall by where you dug?)

You could also put the dwarves you want to keep alive in a military, then set an alert to confine the civilian dwarves to that burrow and activate it, while having the military dwarves elsewhere.