Originally posted by HangarPilot:

Troll or no, I'm not abandoning the pies and letting them burn

You don't have to. Hit the oven with your hammer and they'll pop out still raw. You lose the fuel in the oven, but better than making your food burn.

Besides, Lox are easy enough to kill that it might be worth it to let four burn sometimes.

I placed them around my farm because a hive can kill a greyling. This stops greylings from destroying your crops.

I you use ladders you can put your beehives on top of the thatched roof on your lodge. This keeps you from having them under partial or full cover and having unhappy bees and keeps them from being targets of ground roaming creatures.

I use the tiny half walls and floor to create a tiny box to place them on. The beehive will protect the box treating it as being covered. This raises it off the ground and becomes a less likely target.

Then I put one full wall space in between the hives to prevent being crowded. As long as the bees have 180 degrees in front of them they will not be crowded.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2983613081

haven't tested if it still works but last time i played i did this with my hives

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2430607613

I place mine on short poles and often surround with a simple fence until I dig a moat around my enclave. In the meadows, I like to place them within berry patches for ascetic effect as well.

Originally posted by Meewec:

haven't tested if it still works but last time i played i did this with my hives

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2430607613

This works even better if you put staircases all around the platform so there's always an easy way up; ground-based mobs have the same issues with attacking at vertical angles that we do, and thus can not attack the bees if they're walking on them... with certain exceptions, such as the trolls' overhead smash attack.

Originally posted by HangarPilot:

I always enclose my base area with a stakewall which I put far enough from the house that trolls can't swing through the stakewall and hit the house directly.

Trolls will swing thru that like butter. If you hear them and run outside to immediately engage, then all good. Otherwise, moats or an earthen wall are your best bet. And have everything breakable 8m away from the edge. That's the limit of their reach.

I've only got room for one hive (skep) inside my inner stone wall. There's a dry moat on one side and stake walls on the other three. So I put my hives on top of the inner wall. They're actually on 2x2 floor panels sticking out to the inner side of the wall, so I can walk past them.

Originally posted by MF:

Originally posted by HangarPilot:

I always enclose my base area with a stakewall which I put far enough from the house that trolls can't swing through the stakewall and hit the house directly.

Trolls will swing thru that like butter. If you hear them and run outside to immediately engage, then all good. Otherwise, moats or an earthen wall are your best bet. And have everything breakable 8m away from the edge. That's the limit of their reach.

Why are you hiding in your base when you see a troll? Go outside the walls and lure it away.

Any damage a troll inflicts on your base is entirely your fault.

My hives always go on my 30° base roofs.

It keeps them out of the way and most importantly ... HAPPY!

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by MF:

Trolls will swing thru that like butter. If you hear them and run outside to immediately engage, then all good. Otherwise, moats or an earthen wall are your best bet. And have everything breakable 8m away from the edge. That's the limit of their reach.

Why are you hiding in your base when you see a troll? Go outside the walls and lure it away.

Any damage a troll inflicts on your base is entirely your fault.

Kind of getting off topic ... but to answer you both before the thread deteriorates:

I'm not hiding in the base. Sometimes trolls appear at inopportune times [like when I'm making lox pie ... troll or no, I'm not abandoning the pies and letting them burn] or sometimes while you're fighting one troll the other develops pathing disease and decides to attack the base anyway.

Which is why I place my stakewall where I do. My house walls are 8m from the stakewall ... I know the troll swing will clip right through the stakewall and smash the house so I place the house far enough away so if I'm delayed in getting to the troll for whatever reason there's no real damage he can do. This 8m "gap" between the house and the wall is a great place for bee hives, gardens, even chicken pens. These items are easy to fix/replace. On the other hand trashing my workbench/forge/upgrades or taking out something that affects the house stability and makes the second floor crumble can be a real pain!

Later when I have the stone table, I simply run around the perimeter and let the stone blocks snap to the stakewall. Once done, I usually remove the stakewall because I think the plain stone wall looks nicer, but one could leave it for extra defenses.

The topic was about placing bee hives. Two birds, one stone (or two trolls, one club) ... the stakewall buffer around my house provides a great safety margin and proved to be a great place for bee hives, smelters, etc.

I put my base where there are at least one of the big snags on the ground. Each of the roots, the center all can have a beehive attached, and sometimes on ground between and because they are on different levels they will be happy. Most I have gotten on one was 8. Otherwise there is always one side of base that is higher so I dig down, make a flat spot, an area protected from most stuff. One time I kept having a problem and finally found a skele at night was using a visible one for target practice. There was a fence but he was went to a fairly high area where just the roof showed.

When you get a pick you might consider a moat. Very effective.

They can survive their. I'd put them up on a pole or on the side out of a building so they cant be as easily reached by Greys.
They need space on three sides and open air above them really thats all.

I always enclose my base area with a stakewall which I put far enough from the house that trolls can't swing through the stakewall and hit the house directly. I usually put the bees in that gap between one side of the house and the stakewall.

As for "open meadow" I say no. They will get destroyed if totally unprotected. However, I have successfully had both bees and gardens outside my main compound generally be ignored if completely enclosed by a round-pole fence (have to hop over to get in). However during a troll attack one day they got trashed and I learned a hard lesson ... you get back 100% of materials when something is destroyed -- except crops -- lost all my carrots and seeds.

Pretty much since then, I keep everything inside the compound (and save a stash of extra seeds just in case).

You can also get creative if you like, you could add a second floor to your barn and put the bees above your pigs and see if that works. You can also "hang" the bee hives - attach a beam to the side of your house and attach the "peak" of the hive to the beam ... will look kind of like an huge hanging lantern.