The bees in space get a few upgrades!

Apiary: Expanding the Hive is an expansion for Apiary and requires the base game. (You can read the review of the base game here). It retails for $25 and is available in stores or directly from Stonemaier Games.

Apiary: Expanding the Hive was designed by Connie Vogelmann and published by Stonemaier Games, with illustrations by Kwanchai Moriya.

Here’s what comes in the box:

One of the important things to note about Expanding the Hive is that it’s an expansion and an update patch for Apiary: it includes new gameplay content, but also has a few components that are intended to replace things in the base game. Two of the factions and two of the recruit tiles have been tweaked, so you remove the originals and replace them. There’s also an exploration tile that will need to be replaced if you have a first-printing copy of Apiary. The frames—the little mats that let you expand the structure of your hive—are also all-new, and completely replace the originals.

Everything else is added to their corresponding stacks. One thing I particularly appreciated about this expansion is that it comes in a simple cardboard box with a sticker, because everything in it is intended to fit into the original box insert—there was a little bit of extra room in several of the wells in the base game, and this expansion pack fills up those wells nicely.

The rulebook included with Expanding the Hive is also made to replace the original appendix. You keep the old rulebook, but now you have a single appendix that has all of the factions and tiles in one place (with expansion content marked with an “E” icon), plus a few rules clarifications and tweaks.

The gameplay itself does not really change—the only real rule change is that you have two stacks of the frames, and you can choose the top of either stack when you take one. This is primarily about adding some new content rather than new rules, so instead of a “How to Play” section I’ll just highlight some of the new components.

With 7 new hive mats, there are all sorts of different build bonuses you can earn while you build out your hive, and since each hive-faction combo will behave a little differently, just adding more hive mats increases the number of possibilities significantly.

The frame mats are also now totally unique: each one is still worth 8 points if you fill it by the end of the game, but now there are lots of different bonuses you can earn instead of just seed cards. (This also has the secondary effect of making seed cards a little harder to obtain—perhaps it was decided they were a little too powerful.)

There’s only one brand-new faction (maybe because of storage space limitations?) but it takes advantage of the many different new frames now available, because you get to activate build bonuses for free. The upgraded side lets you build 2 frames immediately.

The new farm tiles aren’t super exciting, but have a few with lots of storage space, plus a couple that produce two pollen or two fiber.

There are four new recruit tiles, a mix of different effects. One makes discarding seed cards for resources more productive, and another gives you bonus points each time you use dances.

The handful of new development tiles have some powerful effects—the radar in particular is another tile that plays off the new frame bonuses.

There are 3 new carving tiles, two of which seem to encourage getting lots of frames. The nursery gives you bonus points if you don’t fill your hive mat, and the Obelisk gives you bonuses specifically for avoiding build bonuses—might be a nice one for that Cedoni faction!

There are a bunch of new seed cards, with their one-time effects when discarded or scoring bonuses if planted. One nice detail is that these seed cards have unique artwork, so you’ll get some visual variety when planting these.

Apiary was named our 2024 Game of the Year, and it’s one that I enjoy every time I break it out. The one thing I’d really wished for was some more hive mats, so I love that Expanding the Hive comes with so many new options. The new frames feel like another significant shift: it can change up the timing of when you expand depending on whether the current build bonuses are in high demand, and the fact that the frames no longer provide an easy way to get seeds means that the Research action may become a little more popular as the primary way to get them.

From my own experience I know that the seed cards can be incredibly powerful, and letting one player get away with lots of recruits and bonuses around seed cards is usually a mistake, particularly when they play a whole handful of them and have a huge turn. (That’s also the reason there’s an official Seed Card Variant, limiting you to 2 seed card abilities per turn.)

I always appreciate that Stonemaier Games includes patches when they’ve realized after lots of plays and feedback that some parts of the game need tweaking, that maybe certain abilities are just a little too strong. The downside is that, as far as I know, the only way to get the replacement tiles is by getting the whole expansion. That said, if you’ve been playing enough that your gaming group has found the ways to abuse those particular abilities, you may be exactly who this expansion is intended for anyway.

Overall, I think Expanding the Hive is a great way to add some new content to Apiary without a lot of new rules overhead. It’s not a common way to do expansions, but I like it. I think Apiary has enough going on that I like being able to experience some new strategies without having to relearn the game. If you’re a fan of Apiary and you’re looking to mix things up a little, it’s worth checking out!

For more info or to order a copy, visit the Stonemaier Games website!

Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.

Source: geekdad.com