Farm building that produces honey and honeycomb (or, unlikely but still possible, an unlockable area). Mid-game/Late-game building:
Option 1:
- Queen Bee as a buyable pet. At earlier levels she will produce flowers, ferns, and possibly the occasional fruit. At later levels she can bring back worker bees, which can be added to the apiary to increase its production levels.
- Worker bees in the apiary will produce honey, honeycomb and beeswax at various quantities, likely at a daily rate.
Option 2:
- A purely silver based building, like the Sawmill and the Quarry. Rarely, the apiary will produce flowers (from purple flowers and ferns to the rarer spring flowers). Otherwise, silver can be used to increase production of honey, honeycomb, and beeswax.
- Alternatively, the silver based instead takes after the chicken coop and cow/pig pens. The player purchases bees which can be levelled up, and they will produce as their level increases.
Option 3:
- The apiary requires the right land in order to balance its production. Rather than donating bees or using silver, more flower varieties are added into the game and must be used to cultivate the nearby environment. This may add a more puzzle-like element to resource management, as rarer flora might produce more of a specific type of resource, at the cost of losing production on others. Cultivating a certain 'biome' type (i.e using purple flowers and fern leaves to match with Highland Hills) may reward unique items, or may simply have different production ratios relative to their donated ratios (aka 50 purple flowers, 25 green ferns and 5. . . tall grass would produce 5 honey, 10 honeycomb, and 25 beeswax. Idk though, just a hypothetical).
Other options:
- Beekeeping townsfolk, possibly with a bee themed quest-line.
- Tower Artefact that allows the apiary to benefit other parts of the farm; i.e more produce from fields or the orchard.
- Beeswax as a crafting material, allowing for possibilities like dyed candles, lit lanterns, moustache wax, etc.
- New flower types (to distinguish them from the spring flowers, they would likely be daisies, roses, and other named flowers) and new flower craftables, like flower-crowns, petal confetti, paint/pigments, etc.
- Possibility of stingers. Maybe they can be given to Raptors?
- Bee pet.
- A honey-glazed recipe type.
