Cud Miód Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Box Contents
• Introduction
• Competitive Variant
  • Setup
  • Goal
  • Course of Play
  • End of the Game
• Cooperative Variant
  • Setup
  • Goal
  • Course of Play
  • The Bear
  • End of the Game
• A Few Facts About Bees and Honey
  • The Honey Bee
  • Honey Production
  • Bees and Flowers
  • The Bloom Calendar
  • Bees in Danger
  • Bears and Bee Nests

Box Contents

• 42 flower tiles (6 for each of the 7 species)
• 12 bee pawns (3 in each of 4 colours)
• 7 double-sided hive tiles
• 1 beekeeper pawn with stand
• 1 bear pawn with stand
• 1 bloom calendar
• 1 honeycomb for collecting honey
• 4 tokens – all honey varieties
• rulebook

Introduction

Players take on the roles of bees gathering nectar from flowers. The order in which the plants bloom is shown on the bloom calendar. The first to bloom, still in May, is rapeseed; the last, between late August and September, is heather.

Many dangers lurk for the bees that gather nectar. The danger symbol in the lower part of a flower tile means that the area is dangerous for bees.

The game has two variants.

In the competitive variant, players compete with one another to see who gathers the most nectar by the end of the game.

In the cooperative variant, players work together: they jointly try to fill the honeycomb with honey as quickly as possible while defending the hive against the greedy bear.

Competitive Variant

Setup

• Place the bloom calendar in the middle of the table, with the side without the bear pictures facing up. On its first field, place the beekeeper pawn.
• Around the calendar, lay out the 7 hive tiles. Around each hive, place 6 flower tiles with the honeycomb-graphic side up.
• Give each player 3 bees in one colour.

Goal

Players try to place their bees so as to collect as many flower tiles as possible (that is, to gather as much nectar as possible).

Course of Play

The game begins in May, during the rapeseed bloom; this is shown by the beekeeper standing on the first field of the calendar, above the picture of the rapeseed flowers.

The player who last ate honey starts. On their turn, a player may reveal from 0 to 3 flower tiles of any kind. They then decide on which of them to place their bees. Only one bee may stand on a single tile. Bees may be placed on any plant species. During their turn, a player may place any number of bees, or none at all.

If two of the flower tiles revealed by the player bear the danger symbol, the player may not place any bees on this turn. If the danger symbol appears on only one of the newly revealed tiles, bees may be placed (including on the danger tile).

At the end of their turn, the player covers again all the tiles on which they did not place bees, and moves the beekeeper one field forward on the calendar. Then the turn passes to the player seated to the left. That player also reveals 0 to 3 flower tiles and decides whether to place bees on them, and then moves the beekeeper.

When the beekeeper moves from the last field of rapeseed to the first field of the next flower (the apple tree), the rapeseed is considered to have finished blooming, and the nectar obtained from it goes into the hive.

Players who had bees on rapeseed tiles take back their pawns (for reuse) and the rapeseed tiles (as points). Bees standing on tiles of other flowers remain on them until that plant finishes blooming. As the beekeeper's steps continue, further flowers finish blooming, and players collect the corresponding tiles.

If it is a player's turn and they have no free bee (all their bees stand on flowers), that player takes no action. They only move the beekeeper pawn, and the turn passes to the next player.

When the heather finishes blooming, the second year begins – and the rapeseed blooms again. Bees placed in the first year remain on their tiles. This means, for example, that in the round when phacelia is blooming, a bee can be placed on a rapeseed tile and collected the following year.

End of the Game

The game ends when all flower tiles have been collected from the table, or when the second year ends (the heather finishes blooming for the second time).

Players then count their collected flower tiles. Each tile is worth 1 point. In addition, each player who has collected at least one tile of each flower species receives the All Honey Varieties token (wszystkie gatunki miodu), which is worth an additional 2 points.

The player who scores the most points in total wins.

In case of a tie, the player with the fewest flower tiles bearing the danger symbol wins. If the tie remains, the players share the victory.

Cooperative Variant

Setup

• Place the bloom calendar in the middle of the table, with the side showing the bear pictures facing up. Place the beekeeper pawn on its first field.
• Around the calendar, lay out the 7 hive tiles. Around each hive, place 6 flower tiles with the honeycomb-graphic side up.
• On any hive tile, place the bear pawn.
• In a place accessible to all players, set the honeycomb for collecting honey.
• Prepare 4 bee pawns in any colours. The bees are shared by all players.

Goal

Using the 4 shared bees, the players try to gather 12 flower tiles as quickly as possible and fill the honeycomb with them. At the same time, by placing their bees well, they drive off the bear, which tries to eat the honey from the honeycomb.

Course of Play

The basic rules (revealing tiles, placing bees, dangers, collecting tiles and moving the beekeeper along the calendar fields) are the same as in the competitive variant.

The basic difference is that players do not have their own bees in separate colours; on their turn they may place the available shared bees on the revealed tiles.

If a player's turn comes when all 4 bees are standing on flowers, the player moves the beekeeper along the calendar until at least one bee is freed. Then the player makes their move (reveals tiles and places bees).

All tiles collected by the players are placed in the honeycomb for collecting honey.

The Bear

When the beekeeper, moving on to the next calendar field, passes the bear's picture, the bear pawn is moved to the next hive tile, clockwise.

If, at the moment the bear appears on a new hive, there are bees on at least 2 flower tiles adjacent to that hive, the bear does not dare to reach the honey.

If there is only 1 bee or no bee on the tiles adjacent to the hive, the bear eats the honey. In that case, take one tile from the honeycomb (if there are any in it) and return it to the box.

The presence of 2 bees near the hive matters only at the moment the bear enters the hive tile. Even if the flowers later finish blooming and the tiles together with the bees are removed, the bear does not eat any honey.

End of the Game

The game ends when the players fill the entire honeycomb with flower tiles.

Depending on which field of the calendar the beekeeper is on at that moment, the players earn a title, which they read from the attached table of bee achievements (zestawienie pszczelich osiągnięć). Depending on when the honeycomb frame is filled, they receive the corresponding title:

• in the first year – SUPER BEES (SUPER PSZCZOŁY);
• in the second year, after collecting nectar from rapeseed or apple – MONTH'S WORKERS (ROBOTNICE MIESIĄCA);
• in the second year, after collecting nectar from clover or linden – HARD-WORKING GATHERERS (PRACOWITE ZBIERACZKI);
• in the second year, after collecting nectar from sunflower or phacelia – NEW TO THE HIVE (NOWE W ULU);
• in the second year, after collecting nectar from heather, or in the third year – LAZYBONES (LENIUSZKI).

A Few Facts About Bees and Honey

This background section is printed in the rulebook. It is not part of the game rules.

The Honey Bee

Many species of bees live in Poland. These include solitary bees (mason bees, leafcutter bees and many others) and bees that live in colonies and form families (for example bumblebees, mistakenly called bąki). Most often, however, when we say "bee," we mean the honey bee (Apis mellifera). This is the species that has been domesticated: it lives in hives set up by people and produces honey. Unlike most farm animals, bees are not kept in captivity. If conditions in the hive are not suitable for them, one day they may leave and fly off in search of a better place to live.

Honey Production

Bees make honey to prepare a store of food for themselves and their larvae. Honey is made from the nectar that worker bees bring from flowers. The sweet load, carried in the crop (the enlarged part of the gullet of the forager), can weigh as much as half of this hard-working insect's body weight! Brought to the hive and mixed with bee saliva, the nectar goes into the hexagonal cells of the comb. Nectar contains 80% water and 20% sugars (glucose and fructose). In the cells the water evaporates from the nectar, which the bees speed up by fanning dry air with their wings. The air absorbs the moisture above the nectar cells, and the bees then direct it toward the hive exit and outside. Finally the cells are sealed with a wax lid, and the finished honey waits until the bee family needs it (or until the beekeeper takes it).

Bees and Flowers

The cooperation between bees and plants has lasted for more than 100 million years. Visiting flowers, bees collect food, that is nectar and pollen. In doing so they always get a little dirty and carry grains of pollen to the next flower. In this way pollination takes place, so that plants can produce fruit and seeds – both sides gain. People also benefit greatly from the bees' activity, later harvesting these fruits and seeds from fields and orchards. Were it not for the honey bee and its wild cousins, we could not enjoy apples, raspberries, sunflowers and many other fruits and vegetables.

Rapeseed (Brassica napus) must be pollinated by bees so that seeds form, from which edible oil is obtained. An additional benefit is the popular and prized rapeseed honey.

Apple (Malus) needs bees in order to bear apples. Pure apple-blossom honey is, however, rare, because other species bloom at the same time and multi-flower honey results.

Clover (Trifolium) is a protein-rich food for cattle. Honey bees pollinate white clover, while red clover is left to bumblebees, because only they have tongues long enough to reach its nectar.

Linden (Tilia) is covered with many fragrant flowers in early summer, which bees visit eagerly. In the past this was such an important event that it gave its name to the month of July.

Phacelia (Phacelia) comes from North America, and in Europe it is grown as a honey plant or an ornamental. It produces very large amounts of nectar and is eagerly visited by bees.

Sunflower (Helianthus) is grown mainly for its seeds. Bees visiting its flowers help achieve a better harvest, but sunflower honey is still a rarity in our country.

Heather (Calluna vulgaris) blooms in September and is one of the last honey plants of the season. Perhaps the name of the month comes from it, although it is also possible that the name comes from the word wresić, meaning to thresh grain.

The Bloom Calendar

Plants provide food for bees only while they are in flower. For this reason these insects can survive only in areas where different plant species bloom at different times of the year. In May bees most easily find food in rapeseed fields and fruit orchards. Later they visit clover, black locust (popularly called acacia), linden and phacelia, and at the end of summer they move on to sunflowers and heather. So that the insects do not have to fly too far, many beekeepers load their hives onto vehicles at a given time of year and transport them to a place where flowering plants are abundant at that moment.

Bees in Danger

A worker leaving the hive may fall victim to bad weather or a predator, such as a bird or a crab spider. In this way only single insects die. A much greater threat comes from diseases and parasites that develop in the hive and can lead to the death of an entire bee family. Plant protection products, which farmers spray on their fields to protect crops from insects that destroy them, are also a serious problem. These substances are lethal to other creatures as well, including the bees that visit the fields.

And why is this a problem for us? In recent years bees have been dying en masse, and it is not entirely clear why. Everything, however, suggests that this is the result of human activity. Meanwhile, most of the world's food supply comes from about 100 different plant species, almost all of which are pollinated by bees. If the bees die out, there will be no apples, strawberries or cherries. Cucumbers and tomatoes will stop bearing fruit. Sunflowers, raspberries, wild strawberries and grapes will disappear.

A small bee is a big deal!

Bears and Bee Nests

The bear's culinary preferences are already revealed by its name. Niedźwiedź is a distorted form of the old word miedźwiedź, which means simply "honey-eater" (the diminutive miś, "teddy bear," also derives from miedźwiedź). But these huge furry animals look for more than honey in bee nests. They also gladly eat the protein-rich bee larvae and pupae (so-called brood). Today few bears remain, so attacks on hives are rare. In the past, however, this was a serious problem. Bees were then kept not in hives but in barcie, special hollows carved into trees in the forest. Bears often climbed up the trunk and helped themselves to the tasty contents. To defend the barcie, people hung heavy wooden logs called samobitnie in front of them. When a bear tried to reach the hollow, it pushed the samobitnia aside with its paw; the log swung back like a rocking swing and, with a strong blow, knocked the intruder out of the tree.