Setting Out on a Buzz-Buzz-Buzz Space Journey with Apiary
Guide a space-faring colony of bees to advance and build aboard a ship while exploring among the stars with Apiary.
One of the more unusual themes is the idea of bees in space, and it felt like the right time to finally explore Apiary! This unforgettable setting comes with worker placement and action selection where it’s all about seeing the bigger picture. I was interested to see just what sorts of advancements were available to these intelligent bees. To a buzzy space journey!
Game Overview
Game Name: Apiary
Publication Year: 2023
Designer: Connie Vogelmann
Artist: Kwanchai Moriya
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Workers of different strengths complete various actions to improve the colony. At a certain point, bees are ready to hibernate, which moves closer to the game end condition. There are tons of tiles and combinations to discover, and nearly every strategy can be a successful one for these bees!
First Play
August 5, 2026
Complexity
3
Latest Play
August 6, 2026
Expansions
0
Setup Time
15 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
4
Play Time
45 Minutes
High Score
93
Game Area
42" x 30"
Low Score
84
The QueenShip
An individual play area with a ship and faction forms a focal point, yet the main board has a lot to look at! Each action comes with something unique, such as the QueenShip.
Exploring reveals new planets, resource sources, and bonus actions when sending a powerful worker out into space.
For whatever reason, I had to read through the rules a couple of times before everything made sense. Just took a little time to internalize the concepts with the presentation.
Luckily, this one is pretty easy to understand once that initial hurdle has been cleared. Just some bees in SPAAACE!
Board Room Bears
With the availability of honey, it wasn’t long before a few Calico Critter bears showed up! But they were faced with an intelligent group of bees, so stealing was out of the question.
Instead, they tried to distract the bees with bureaucracy. In other words, bear-aucracy. Ha! They had many ideas.
Don’t try to fool the bees, though. These bears clearly didn’t pay attention to the rules. The total strength of the workers didn’t qualify them to recruit the Astrochemist at this time!
A better strategy would have been to recruit the available Deputy… Mostly to apprehend these bothersome bears. Ha!
Framing and Building
Such a cool play area! A ship offers plenty of spots to fill in, and additional frames expand the available spaces. Leaving them empty can still be worth it with some seed cards.
Indeed, with this play, I planted a seed card that rewarded victory points for frames, so this made a lot of sense!
It was neat to see the various strategies, too. Balancing the sorts of tiles was a possibility, as was focusing on just a few types. This encourages strategy exploration, which is great!
I began my journey at the easiest difficulty levels, and slowly worked my way up to a challenging experience.
Docked Workers
These bees were amazing! They rotate to reveal a different strength value on top. As they get retrieved or bumped, they increase until they eventually head into a hibernation pod.
It’s a neat sort of timer for the end game, and this isn’t a game designed to go on forever. This also means that higher difficulty levels take less time to play, which is quite nice.
Managing my workers was a lot of fun. The solo opponent randomly moved about, so I couldn’t rely on being bumped.
Sometimes, it was up to me to bump my own worker to take the same action again. Planning everything took some skill!
The Freedom to Explore and Define Strategies
Perhaps the greatest strength of this game, at least for me, was its ability to keep everything open. I was initially concerned that I could only win if I picked up a lot of carvings and won the majorities in the hibernation pods. Nope! Although there are probably easier paths to victory, most of the fun came from being able to identify and follow my own strategies.
They didn’t always pan out, yet if I saw a neat combination of recruits and advancements, it was a lot of fun racing the solo opponent to see if I could pick them all up first! I feel like there are more nuances, too, as there are some actions I definitely didn’t make the most of. And income! I understood the reason for the landing area, but never used it… Maybe next time.
Gameplay didn’t grab me as much as the enjoyment of formulating my own strategies, yet that’s just me: So picky. Ha ha! I loved discovering that there isn’t a single path to victory, and the game actively encouraged me to try out new things. Cool!
Dancing Along
Another important part of gameplay are the dances. The solo opponent ignores these entirely, yet I had the ability to teach one of these for a new conversion to use.
Sometimes, it didn’t really make sense with my strategy, but often, this was a way for me to define a way to collect an important resource. Lots of possibilities and dance steps!
A few more Calico Critter bears appeared to dance along. Adorable! But it was a ploy to steal honey. I don’t think so!
Gameplay flowed smoothly, and after a couple of plays, it moved at a much nicer pace. Setup was lengthy, though.
Making Wise Decisions
The available tiles were really fun to puzzle through! Only a portion of these are seen with each play, and some work together better than others. That’s the puzzle: Seeing it all.
I liked how the recruits often enhanced other actions. Not that I got lucky enough to stack a lot of related ones, yet this layout gave me the chance to improve in several actions.
Developments provided immediate benefits that were better at the right times. And farms were for storage and income…
Wait a second! That’s not a standard honey storage space. The Calico Critter bears finally succeeded in their heist. Ha!
Session Overview
Play Number: 1-4
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Difficulty Levels 1-3
Outcome: 84-83, 93-93, 84-99, 87-86 (3 Wins & 1 Loss)
So many different outcomes! The tiles I might consider to be my favorites didn’t come out each play, nor did they always make the most sense. There were a lot of close calls, including the tied score when I won since I taught a dance. Success! Gameplay was great, although I wasn’t sure if I loved every aspect. At least it was a fun time, though, and was easy enough to keep playing when it was set up!
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
7
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
9
Originality
Design & Theme
6
Quality
Components & Rules
8
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
7
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
7
+ Pros (Positives)
- Every action can be useful and form the basis for a strategy, which allows for a lot of exploration of the possibilities.
- Managing the solo opponent is quick and clear with the cards that define priorities and the result of the action.
- Play time speeds up at higher difficulty levels, offering a more focused challenge to identify an optimized strategy.
- Artwork may not take a central role, yet it’s enjoyable to admire the different recruits, developments, and carvings.
- There is a lot of variety with the way only a portion of the tiles are used with each play, often in unique combinations.
- Seed cards can provide interesting options related to how to use them for an immediate benefit or final scoring.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Setup takes a noticeable amount of time with a lot of different tiles and tokens that have to be shuffled and placed.
- The rules are clear enough after a few plays, but they take a little time to understand in the way they’re presented.
- Lots of iconography and text are present in many spots that can be difficult to read from afar with limited contrast.
- Even though the theme is unique, gameplay is very mechanical and focused on collecting and spending resources.
Victory Conditions
Score the Most Points
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Win at least 1 game at difficulty level 1.
Win at least 1 game at difficulty level 2.
Win at least 1 game at difficulty level 3.
Continue the Conversation
What do you like the most about Apiary? Is there a tile combination you particularly love to focus on? Trying out various strategies was a lot of fun, and I managed to win even without focusing on the carvings that seemed to be central. This one is very interesting in the way it encourages exploration and recognition of powerful combinations. It’s still on my table!
Having had experience as an apprentice beekeeper and honeybees being my second favorite animal, Apiary was a must have purchase when it came out. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get it to the table much, folks in my gaming groups seem intimidated by the complexity of the board and resistant to that learning curve you mentioned. I have only played it solo a few times with a game or two on Boardgame Arena. The most attractive feature to me of Apiary is the exploration of possibilities (which, from my experience, is so consistent with actual Honeybee behavior) you mentioned in your post and that a winning strategy can be achieved along many paths. I actually pay little attention to winning, but to just see where the exploration takes me. Thank you for posting your thoughts on this unique and fascinating game! I really enjoy the layout of your blog; allows a reader to either read it in full, take it in snippets, or just glance at the essential points. A bit like Apiary, you offer the reader multiple possibilities in an attractive, accessible format.
That’s awesome about being an apprentice beekeeper! Glad that the strategic exploration resonated with you, too, and I appreciate the kind words. Glad to know the structure is easy to understand and skip through if desired. Thanks for reading, and good luck the next time you play!