Apiary Board Game Tips & Strategies Pt.1

Apiary is a worker-placement engine builder game that is absolutely packed with ways to place workers and to score points. The variety of point-scoring mechanics, bonuses and achievements unlock a fun points add-up at the end of the game where it can be difficult to tell who’s won until the very end. From Stonemaier Games, this one is a definite advancement from worker placements like Viticulture and Lords of Waterdeep.

The game is themed around intergalactic space bees who are exploring the far reaches of the galaxy. Players can use the Queen Ship to explore uncharted planets for common resources which they can use to grow their Hives or convert into rarer resources for bigger VP opportunities. As bees grow stronger (more on their strength mechanic below), you unlock more powerful actions before being forced to Hibernate in hibernation pods. Once the pods are full, the game ends and points are calculated to determine a winner.

Apiary Worker Placement Strategy

The Apiary worker placement mechanics are truly fascinating, as they bring in new thought processes and strategy on where you are placing your workers. The worker bees at your disposal have 4 sides, and the face-up number (or strength) when they are placed alters the abilities you can perform on your turn. 4-strength bees are the most powerful and can be used to unlock bonuses on certain spots as well as unlocking powerful Carves for big VPs.

Planning out the placement of your workers is different in Apiary due to your ability to ‘bump’ your opponent and for them to bump you. This causes your bee to come back to your docking mat and you can choose to make it available to place with +1 strength or return it to your play mat to later be retrieved. 4-strength bees that are bumped are forced to hibernate.

This means, with planning, and careful placement you can ensure that your bees are in prime position to be ‘bumped’ back to your play mat. Whilst having no bees and being forced to retrieve for one of your turns isn’t the end of the world (depending on your setup it can be beneficial) I do always like to know when this is coming and not leaving bees stranded. Having worker bees ready to go can ensure a stronger engine and more powerful turns.

To implement your Apiary worker placement strategy, you need to be paying more attention to where others may be going next. If an opponent is sitting on a lot of resources they may be looking to Advance to gain more hexes or they could be about to Convert to switch their resources into Honey or Wax. This could be an opportunity to ensure your bee is in position to be bumped back to you, knowing that you have a stronger bee ready for the next turn.

Apiary Seed Card & Planting Strategy

Even just having a Seed Card in Apiary can open up a variety of possible actions. The cards themselves have 3 functions. You can discard a card for a core resource (Pollen, Fibre or Water), you can play the card and use its benefit or you can Plant the card (when you find that action) to gain end of game VPs and benefits. Note that card draw isn’t so common in Apiary so you’ll need to work with what you can get with your Precious seeds. 

If there are ways to get your hands on more cards during the game, it should definitely be a top consideration. You do risk pulling a card that has nothing to do with your strategy or current needs, but you could also gain a quick effect that leads to a much more impactful turn. You can draw cards through Research, but annoyingly can only keep one so make sure to claim Exploration Tokens, Tiles, Hibernation Bonuses or Hex Placement Bonuses.

Planting a seed card is a much bigger action, so I certainly wouldn’t be doing it lightly. The most common way to plant a seed is to place a 4-worker bee on the Resource space. This possibly isn’t the best way to be using your precious 4-strength bees as unlocking Carves, Upgrading Factions & Teaching Dances tend to equal more points. Make sure to only be spending a 4-strength bee to plant if the End Game VPs are really worth it, else, it would be better to just play the card and gain its bonuses. 

So, if seed collection is your strat, gain as many as you can from whatever means, chose and keep the best ones to plant and use the others for big swing turns or resources here and there that could help you complete a turn that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

Apiary Queen’s Favour Strategy

The Queen’s Favour (QF) route is a hard path to take as the gains are small throughout the game. It’s only really worth putting effort into the QF if you can get yourself to the far right. The track runs along the base of the board and maxes out at a potential 25 points for getting the full way along the track. The main ways of getting QF are:

• Residual Payments: triggered by retrieving your bees to your docking mat, various farm bonuses include up to 3 gains on Queen’s Favours.
• Discarding Resources: when your storage hexes are full and you can’t fit in extra resources, you must discard them but you do gain a QF in exchange

The big glaringly obvious sign to go for QF would be that if you see the Retinue Carve (rewards VPs for your QF track position) available. This could lead to a whopping 50 VPs if worked correctly. Be careful though, other players could also spot this early, or could take the Carve for themselves to prevent you from getting a big haul of VPs. 

Unsurprisingly, there are multiple other ways to gain QFs in Apiary, this includes a few Development Tiles, Seed Cards & bonuses on Hive Mats or Hive Frame Hexes. When starting the game, it's virtually impossible to see if all of these ways of gaining are available. If you see the Farms with QF as residual payment then it makes this a more valid go-to strat as you know you can work on the slow gain. 

Without those early farms it can be risky to go all-in on QFs. Hunting down the rewards can be a little random and inefficient compared to other strategies. I would try and consider your QFs a little side-hustle that you can really start to focus on late game when you’re confident that other conditions and challenges have been met. Regardless, it can be a fun challenge to work your way along the track for a big jump at the end of the game.

Did you know? If (typically during your last turn), you go to place a Hibernation Pod into the Hibernation Comb and there is no room, you instead get a QF. This could be a good last move to squeeze out an extra step on the Queen’s Favour track.

More Apiary The Board Game Tips

There are plenty more strategies and ways to play the game that we are yet to explore. Check out part 2 for more player considerations that should be taken throughout the game to ensure big VPs and maximum efficiency. The huge number of possibilities for points, the various Bee factions, Hive mats and Hex Tiles make this game super replayable as no two games are really ever the same. Certainly give Apiary a try for your next worker placement space bee adventure!