Gendustry

The first machine you’ll need is the Mutagen Producer. This will convert certain materials into liquid Mutagen, which is required to power the Mutatron. I usually use Redstone Blocks for this, but it does accept glowstone and other materials. It will also require FE to operate.

The Mutatron is the second most important machine. It will consume Mutagen to force a mutation and is a huge time-saver. It also bypasses all mutation requirements. If you can afford to do so, I strongly recommend immediately upgrading to the Advanced Mutatron, which will give you the ability to choose your resulting mutation, as some species have multiple results. Note that the mutation process has the chance to kill ignoble princesses. I haven’t run enough tests to guess at the rate of deaths, but it doesn’t seem too high.

Another important set of Gendustry machines is the Sampler and Imprinter. Basically, you can sacrifice bees in order to get a copy of a specific trait, which you can then use in an imprinter/template to alter bees. So, if you want your bees to act faster, you’d want to obtain bees with the fastest trait (you can look these up in JEI). If you want ones with a larger territory / range, produce some of those. Each bee sacrificed will produced one gene randomly out of whatever active and inactive ones it possesses. You can sacrifice princesses, but it’s a waste. Gene samples can be recycled by smelting them.

When you have gene(s) you like, you can add them to a template simply by crafting them (one-by-one or multiple) together with a template. The gene is consumed and permanently added to the template. Blank characteristics in a template will not change those characteristics for the target bee. So for example, if you wanted to make your Rocky Bees have 4 offspring instead of the default 1, but keep everything else the same, you could sacrifice Majestic drones until you get the offspring: 4 trait, then add it to a template. If you were to use this template, every characteristic would remain the same except for the offspring, which would take on the new 4-offspring trait.

The Imprinter is the machine that uses the templates. Each imprinting consumes a labware and has a chance of killing an ignoble princess. You will need to do this twice for each species you wish to modify (to create a breeding pair).

If you want to copy samples or templates, you can use the Genetic Transposer.

So what do I do with these machines?

I would start making use of the Mutagen Producer and Mutatron as soon as possible. There are a couple of pairings that lead to multiple mutations, and being able to force a specific mutation takes a lot of RNG frustration out of the bee breeding process. This will let you proceed through bees pretty quickly.

After you've gotten a couple different species to play with, you'll want to start looking at the Sampler and Imprinter to make more of specific kinds of bees, or make them all nocturnal / cave-dwelling / rain-tolerant, so you can have your bees running 24/7 anywhere you'd like. I haven't yet found the need to make more princesses, since there isn't a whole lot of competition for hives, but it's definitely an option to consider if they're hard to come by.

Industrial Apiaries & Upgrades

So if you’ve been going the Gendustry route, you’ve probably already made a few of these already. There are 4 slots in the middle of each Industrial Apiary which can be used for upgrades. Some allow multiple copies of a particular upgrade; each upgrade (including duplicates) will increase the RF cost. I will cover the ones I use the most here, but a detailed list can be seen here or in JEI:

• Automation Upgrade: A must-have upgrade, it is great for mass-producing drones, cloning a bee (breeding a random princess with ~5-7 of a different drone), getting bee products / constant effects. Once a queen’s lifecycle is complete, it automatically takes the princess and breeds it with whatever is in the drone slot, otherwise it will select a random drone from the output slots. If you have pipes extracting from your apiary, this will breed the princesses first before it can be extracted. However, this upgrade will not work if your apiary’s output slots are full.
• Light Upgrade: Provides constant daylight for your bees. If you modify your bees to be nocturnal, this isn’t necessary.
• Open Sky Upgrade: If you want to have your bees underground, you can either poke windows up to the sky or simply use one of these. If you modify your bees to be cave-dwelling, this isn’t necessary.
• Seal: If you want your bees to work in bad weather, this can be used. If your bee has the tolerates rain trait, this isn’t necessary.
• Lifespan: These are great when creating new species, or waiting out newly-mutated queens. You can have four of them in your apiary, and it will speed through the queen’s lifecycle without permanently changing the bee.
• Territory: You can use this to greatly enhance your bee’s effect range; I mostly use these with Career Bees. For example, having territory: largest and four territory upgrades lets bees reach about a 100 block radius around the apiary.
• Production: This will increase the amount of bee products/effects generated. I use these with Energy Bees to increase the amount of energy filled per tick.
• Stabilizer: Great if you have ignoble princesses; these will let you breed them infinitely without worrying if/when they will disappear.
• Biome Overrides: I tend to prefer these over the climate upgrades, since it will take care of both temperature and humidity differences at the same time with a single upgrade. Also, some bees will want it very hot or cold, which means you would need multiple heating/cooling upgrades to achieve the right climate - or just use a single Hell / Winter Biome Upgrade.