Apiary

Released in 2023, Apiary is a Worker Placement Board Game, designed by Connie Vogelmann, with art from Kwanchai Moriya and published by Stonemaier Games for 1-5 players. It’s a game about Bees…in space (sound familiar?)!

In Apiary, each player selects one of twenty unique Bee factions. Each faction has their own starting resources, and special abilities. Each player also has a starting mat/hive, with room for some additional hexagonal tiles, and space for up to 4 seed cards (but start with only space for 2). Each player also starts with some worker bees, the number and starting level of which are determined by their chosen faction, the most they will have access to at any one time being four.

Over the course of the game, players will send worker bees to different locations on the main board to do specific actions. Depending on the worker’s ‘level’, they will be able to choose from, or do multiple things. When a player places a level 4 bee, there will be an additional bonus action. Players can also ‘bump’ already bees (even their own) from already occupied spaces.

The available locations/actions players can send their bees too are:

• Explore – Players can move the Queen Bee ship to different planets to acquire resources (Pollen, Water, and Fiber).
• Research – Gain Seed Cards, which can be used either to get basic resources, play a bonus action, or save them to plant them at the bottom of their player board.
• Advance – Players can purchase tiles to expand their home base. The available tiles are Farms, Recruits, and Developments.
• Grow – Players can send their worker bees here to gain an additional worker bee, or buy a frame, to increase the number of tiles they can build on their player mat/hive (which in turn increases the number of planted seed cards they can plant).
• Convert – Convert cards into cards, or resources into more advanced resources, either Wax, or Honey. Optionally, players can also convert things into other things, by way of dances, that may be taught by other players.
• Carving – (Only Level 4 Workers may be placed here) Players send their bees here, to create a carving. These yellow tiles go on the player’s mats, and usually create additional points at the end of the game.

Each location (except the Carving space) features Level 4 Bonuses for players to do, once a level 4 worker bee is placed there. These are:

• Explore – Gain the strength 4 benefit on the visited planet (if it has one).
• Research – Plant a seed card under the player mat.
• Advance – Gain 3 points.
• Grow – Upgrade faction tile.
• Convert – Teach a dance.

Once a player has either run out of worker bees, or would rather get them back sooner anyway, players can spend their turn retrieving their worker bees instead. When a bee is bumped off the board, a player can choose either to upgrade that bee and return it to their active pool, or send it to their landing area. When bees are retrieved, any that come from the main board, and/or the landing area, immediately go up one level (rotate from 1 to to 2 say), and players can also gain income from any farm tiles they have purchased to, but may only gain income from each farm tile once, no matter how many bees they retrieve. So if they had 2 farm tiles, and retrieved three workers, each farm could provide income once, whilst the third bee does not activate anything.

Farms also provide extra room for more resource space. When a players turn has finished, they must store whatever they can. Anything they can’t store is lost, but for each item they lose; they go along one space on the ‘Queen’s Favour’ track, which provides additional points at the end of the game. Players though, cannot choose to loose/dump resources if they can store them. If they have room, they must store them (players though can be wasteful/uneconomical in their approach). Recruit Tiles provide ongoing benefits throughout the game, whilst Development tiles provide one time benefits, which are activated when they are built.

Once a player’s worker bee, is upgraded beyond level 4; that bee goes into hybernation. The worker bee is removed from the player’s area, and the player then takes one of their hybernation tokens, and chooses one of the bonusses at the bottom of the board. This area also triggers the end game procedure, as when all the bonusses are covered with tokens, each player only has one turn left, and the game is over. In addition to that, whoever has the most hybernation tokens in each area, also gains additional end game bonus points.

Once the game is over, players tot up their scores. These can come from all sorts of places:

• Seed Cards.
• Tiles built in their hives.
• Faction boards.
• Completed Hives and Frames.
• Carvings.
• Hibernation majorities.
• Queen’s Favour Track.

After all players have worked out how many points they each have, whoever has the highest score, wins the game. And that is Apiary in a nutshell!

My Board Game of the Year (2024)!