Honey Buzz Game

For years, the bees that live in the woods of Sweetwater Grove have been content to collect pollen and make honey. The only threat to their peaceful life involves bears and other creatures who pursue their hives for honey. This spring, the bee colony plans to use the new knowledge and ideas they have been accumulating to produce and market their pollen and honey in a market stand. Play as a member of the Queen Bee’s staff and compete with other hive members to send out worker bees, gather nectar and pollen, raise new bees, make honey and sell it at the market.  The player with the most points earned from this enterprise when the game ends wins!  These points are gained in four ways.  1.) Value of all coins you earn and are unspent 2.) Honey and pollen remaining in your hive.  3.) Speed and end game queen’s contest points 4.) Completed order points for selling honey and nectar at the market.

Gameplay Overview:

Honey Buzz consists of continuing player turns until game end triggers.  The two basic turn actions are:

•  Gain a hive tile - The goal is to use worker bees to claim one of six types of tiles to add to your hive.  Next, players decide how to arrange the tiles so that one of four possible hive cell patterns are completed.  This is important because the pattern will dictate which type of nectar you can place inside the cell and which actions are available.  There are six possible actions that you can perform in any combination and order at the time you finish a hive cell.  They are as follows:

a.       Forage for Nectar: All players start with a forage token, which is moved one space in nectar field free of cost.  Spend coins to move additional spaces.  Land on a space with the nectar type of the newly formed cell to collect it and place it in the hive cell.  If a player’s token ends in an empty space or there is not a matching empty cell for that type of nectar, gain one pollen instead.

b.      Produce: Place your fan token on any space in your hive.  Then, gain one honey of the matching type of all adjacent nectar tiles.  There can only be one honey on each nectar tile at a time.

c.       Market:  There are two market actions.

• Complete an order:  At the beginning of the game, three stacks of order cards are placed in the market area.  Complete one of the face-up orders with its matching honey or nectar to gain the number of points indicated at the end of the game.  Then, take the matching action underneath that stack which will be forage, produce or market.

a.       Keep the completed order and flip the next order in that stack face up.

b.      Gain a New Bee:  Move one new worker of your player color into the nursery.  These bees will be available after your next “recall bee” basic action.

c.       Accounting:  Gain five coins from the supply.

d.      Decree:  This action allows you to take any one of the other hive actions. 

• Recall Worker Bees - What happens when it is your turn and you run out of worker bees to send out and claim a tile?  Although you can take the Recall Worker Bees action on any turn, you must recall them now!  Gather up all your bees from all the gain tile spaces and the nursery on the main board and bring them back to the hive.  At this time, you can also take one free move in the nectar field to better position your marker for the next forage action. 

Once all orders in any two of the three stacks in the market are completed or the values of any four of the five resources (honey and pollen) are at the bottom of their values, the game ends once all players have taken an equal number of turns.  Players add all points and the best hive manager wins!  There is an advanced variant mode included for a bit more challenge as well as a solo variant.  For 1-4 players with a 45 to 90-minute playtime!