Bees and Flower Power

[Rias]

Per the recent changelogs:

- The new Flower Power stat has been implemented for farms, which affects beehive efficiency.
- Beehives with a production efficiency under 30% will now begin losing bee population over time. New beehives built on farms that don't produce enough Flower Power to grant at least 30% beehive production efficiency will no longer attract bee scouts even if they have a lump of beeswax in them.
- New seeds added where seeds are sold: marigold, crocus
- New helpfiles/wiki articles: Flower Power, Beehive

Beehives have long been the minimal-effort moneymaker of "build a hive, profit forever with no further effort aside from harvesting the honeycomb every once in a while." These updates were largely to give some kind of continuing maintenance effort to beekeeping in the form of needing to plant, water, and weed at least a few plots' worth of flowers. The silver lining is that it's also paving the way toward some more updates, such as absolutely cribbing an idea from Stardew Valley and having flavored honeys if certain types of flowers are growing nearby. It's also motivating further work on the Apiculture (beekeping) ability tree branch of Animal Husbandry that's being mapped out along with all the other skill-based ability trees!

[Frisbee]

Thank you for implementing this. It is gratifying to know that we will henceforth be able to directly take care of our bees.

A question that is very likely answerable with time and experimentation, but I'm that impatient: Do flowers have any other uses apart from being bee magnets? Can they be harvested/sold/used as decoration of some kind? If not, I think this may be interesting to consider thinking about, not only for home-grown flowers, but for wild ones, as well.

[Rias]

The flowers aren't harvestable yet (and it should say as much when examining the seeds or ordering them in a shop). They will be at some point along with many of those wild flora you see out there but can't forage, but I'm still working on item bloat issues as well and didn't want to introduce more "neat to look at but no practical use" items until that was more under control.

[Xandrea]

I haven't been doing bees for awhile but, this makes me really excited to get back into them! I really like bee keeping but, I felt it was a bit too easy for monies so I pumped the breaks on them. Can't wait to see more stuff for this in the future!

[Frisbee]

That's a good point that I quite possibly hadn't considered, about item bloat!

Thank you, once again, and keep up the great work.

[Dennis]

I shall plant fairy rose, leave, and never explain.

[tulpa]

So looking forward to apiculture, as well as seeing what else is in store for Animal Husbandry. Also holding out for wild bees, still!

Some very nitpicky feedback: the flowers I think of as crocuses are bought as bulbs (sometimes corms, I think?), not seeds. You'd not usually see them referred to as such, at least in the UK.

It would also be interesting if the wood-type of beehives affected bee happiness/productivity levels. Apparently hives made from cedar and other more fragrant woods (perhaps one or two of COGG's fantasy woods?) are preferred by bees.

[Firerose]

Tulpa, this is really fascinating. I never thought about the fragrance of wood playing a part. I love this idea very much.
I wonder if other flowers would help with bees, and if so, which. It would be awesome to have a flower garden of several different types.