As a player, you control a bee colony.
These are special bees. They have learned how to do beesness from us humans.
Every colony operates in the garden of Commons.
Throughout the game, you can deploy different beesness models: from trading flowers for honey, to extorting honey from other colonies, privatising flowers and other nasty moves..
To have the most honey at the end of the year!
- At the end of the year (12 turns), the colony with the most honey wins, provided there are still flowers left in the garden.
- If all flowers are taken from the garden, at any point during the game, everybody loses.
From 2 to infinity.
Plant flowers in the garden. To start with, place 5 flower tokens for each player on the table.
| Players | Flowers |
|---|---|
| 2 | 10 |
| 3 | 15 |
| 4 | 20 |
| 5 | 25 |
| 6 | 30 |
| etc. | The formula: 5 × players |
Place the bee cards face up, stacked by bee type (4 stacks).
| Type | Price honey | Skills |
|---|---|---|
Worker bee  |
4 | It can take 1 flower per month if the garden has more than half of the starting flowers (eg: if flowers > 10 when there are 4 players) |
Austerity bee  |
8 | It can take 1 flower per month (no matter what) |
Drone bee  |
8 | It can take 2 honey per month from another colony |
Queen  |
16 | It can generate 1 bee per month OR privatise 1 flower per month (you'll learn what these mean later) |
Each player starts with 1 worker bee.
Put all the honey in one pot (or pile). That will be the bank.
Put a month marker (any token) on the first month of the year.
This is optional (and it doesn't matter who starts the very first round) but starting a round may give you a competitive advantage in times of austerity...
You can determine the player who starts a round by bidding honey. The highest bidder pays the bank and gets the right to execute their beesness strategy before all other players.
Play then proceeds clockwise.
If you wish, you can do this at the beginning of every round.
- One player at a time, you execute your beesness strategy
- All together, you sell your flowers for honey
- All together, you replant the garden
If you have honey, you can decide to invest some (or all) of it to grow your colony. You are allowed to buy one bee card per turn. Pay the bank and add the card to your colony.
Then use as many of your cards as you wish to execute your strategy.
For example
| IF | AND | THEN |
|---|---|---|
| you have 2 worker bees | there are more than half of the initial number of flowers in the garden of Commons | you can take 2 flowers |
| you want to use a worker bee to take flowers | there are half or less than half of the initial number of flowers in the garden of Commons | you cannot take flowers with that card |
| you have 1 drone | you can take 2 honey from another colony | |
| you want to deploy drones against another player | they have less honey than you could take | you can force them to use one or more of their bee cards as payment (eg: put a worker bee back to the stack, get 4 honey from the bank and pay you) |
| you have a queen | you can either generate another bee of your choice (that is, pick another card from the stack, any card but not another queen) or privatise a flower (that is, keep it in your colony, more details on this below). You cannot both generate and privatise in the same turn. |
After all players have executed their strategies, determine the price of one flower for this month.
| Total flowers | 2 players | 3 players | 4 players | 5 players | 6 players |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 9 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 10 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 11 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 12 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 14 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 15 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 16 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 17 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 18 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 19 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 20 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 21 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 22 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 23 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 24 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 25 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Each player gets paid in honey, from the bank, for the flowers they took this month.
For example: if you took 2 flowers and their individual value is 3, then you'll get 6 honey from the bank.
Your flowers are now sold. Discard them.
If you have a queen (and you haven't already used it this month to generate a bee), you can keep one flower per month and still get paid for it. From the next month, this privatised flower will generate more honey for you (at its current market value).
At the end of the round, add 1 flower for every 2 flowers left in the garden.
For example: if there are 9 flowers left, add 4.
All together, you can decide to give back one or more of your bee cards in order to replenish the garden.
Each worker, austerity and drone bee can get you 1 flower. The queen is worth 2 flowers.
You don't all have to give back the same number or type of cards. For example, one player may decide to give back 1 bee, and another player 3 bees. Discuss and try to reach a consensus. Remember, if the garden runs out of flowers, everybody loses.
Move the month marker to the next space on the calendar to keep track of the rounds.
The game ends at the end of the last month.
The player with the most honey wins!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
