Dormat hives

[Parzival (CowRep)]

with the new caves and insect hives that spawn inside, i noticed that they are dormant and not reproducing. what makes the hives active again to start producing again?

[Darren]

I have never seem them reproduce the hives have always vanished ling before that no idea why but the bugs then go for my colony when whatever it is happens.

[3 Ducks In a Man Suit]

When you open a cave with dormant hives in it, most of the time the hives will almost instantluy start spawning megaspiders.

If you meant lore-wise, I think the idea is that they can be dormant for a really long time if there's no food, so the hives are hybernating until you dig them up, and then the sound/smells/light wakes them up.

[johan.wittens]

I often build bases under a mountain or in a cave system and i often use the bugs for food. I just collect the jelly when they are sleeping, it's easy pickings...

But in my experience also, the bugs do never reproduce. New hives NEVER spawn, and new bugs are NEVER created. When i accidentky killed all the bugs of one hive, it simply degraded and was destroyed due to lack of maintenance...

Really annoying as i want to keep my hives alive since they are my food source...

[Jet]

you can just walk up to them while sleeping and steal their jelly? they wont attack?

[MilfBait]

Originally posted by johan.wittens:

I often build bases under a mountain or in a cave system and i often use the bugs for food. I just collect the jelly when they are sleeping, it's easy pickings...

But in my experience also, the bugs do never reproduce. New hives NEVER spawn, and new bugs are NEVER created. When i accidentky killed all the bugs of one hive, it simply degraded and was destroyed due to lack of maintenance...

Really annoying as i want to keep my hives alive since they are my food source...

Im pretty sure the bugs wouldve died anyway as you are also stealing their food.

From what ive observed they never starve as they always seem to have the jelly around.

I was hoping they would starve to death once theyd eaten all the jelly that spawned at the start, meaning i wouldnt have to deal with them raging after a random raid accidently damages their hive, but alas, i didnt realise they produce the jelly quite regularly.

Back to my point though, eventualy if you are stealing it each night, then they wouldnt be able to produce enough to feed them all and a few of them would starve to death.

[sbmarauderman03]

Meanwhile, in a nearly identical thread...

Originally posted by Astasia:

The hives that generate with a map are dormant by design and will never become "un-dormant." If you want to farm bugs you will need to spawn hives using an infestation event.

The dormant hives in undiscovered locations are likely in a sort of stasis because they aren't truly loaded until you reveal them. So if there's no bugs to maintain them or the temperature is too hot/cold they will quickly start to decay once you find them.

[johan.wittens]

Originally posted by Jet:

you can just walk up to them while sleeping and steal their jelly? they wont attack?

Yep. If the bug are sleeping, you can just walk straight up to the hive and steal the jelly... Yum yum.

[johan.wittens]

Originally posted by HerbalArchenon:

Originally posted by johan.wittens:

I often build bases under a mountain or in a cave system and i often use the bugs for food. I just collect the jelly when they are sleeping, it's easy pickings...

But in my experience also, the bugs do never reproduce. New hives NEVER spawn, and new bugs are NEVER created. When i accidentky killed all the bugs of one hive, it simply degraded and was destroyed due to lack of maintenance...

Really annoying as i want to keep my hives alive since they are my food source...

Im pretty sure the bugs wouldve died anyway as you are also stealing their food.

From what ive observed they never starve as they always seem to have the jelly around.

I was hoping they would starve to death once theyd eaten all the jelly that spawned at the start, meaning i wouldnt have to deal with them raging after a random raid accidently damages their hive, but alas, i didnt realise they produce the jelly quite regularly.

Back to my point though, eventualy if you are stealing it each night, then they wouldnt be able to produce enough to feed them all and a few of them would starve to death.

The Hives spawn a lot of jelly, i've never had them starve because i steal their jelly. During the day they spawn jelly too that is immediatly eaten by the bugs. It's only at night i can steal. If the timing is bad i can only steal around 20 or even less, if timing is good it might be more. But even then a few bugs can die, as you only need a couple to maintain the hive. I keep a minimum of two bugs alive for maintenance, and this gives lots of exess jelly.
And also i place corpses from raids on a dump near the hive, so the bugs can eat corpses if they don't have jelly. Great way to keep the bugs alive, and great way to get rid of corpses.