Apiary: Expanding the Hive Review – The 12-Month-Late Balance Patch

Disclaimer: Apiary: Expanding the Hive was provided for free by Stonemaier Games. All opinions expressed here are my own – free from any bee-related bribery.

It’s hard to believe a year has flown by since Apiary brought us a sci-fi spin on our favourite pollinators. And now, just 12 months later, Stonemaier Games has graced us with Expanding the Hive, an expansion packed with more bees, more ships, and, well… more everything.

If you’re unfamiliar with Apiary, start with our review of the base game. But for those already well-versed in intergalactic bee lifecycles, let’s dig into what this expansion brings to the table.

Everything you get in Apiary: Expanding the Hive

Expanding the Hive focuses primarily on balance improvements, with many of its components designed to replace those in the base game. While it doesn’t overwhelm players with additions, the new hive mats, seed cards, and spaceship frames introduce fresh strategies and diverse paths to victory.

Here’s a breakdown of everything packed into the box:

• 15 frames (replacing existing frames)
• Updated versions of the Arti and Cecro faction tiles
• Updated Engineer and Pharmacist tiles
• 7 hive mats
• 16 tiles
  • 4 farms
  • 3 carvings
  • 4 recruits
  • 5 developments
• 1 new faction: the Cedoni
• 4 explore tokens
• 15 seed cards
• 3 dance tiles and 6 dance tokens

For owners of the first edition of Apiary, you’ll also find a replacement for your explore token with two seed cards on it. The new token only gives one, smoothing out the game’s balance.

Outside of the balance changes, the standout addition is undoubtedly the new spaceship frames. Unlike those from the base game, they offer unique building bonuses while still awarding 8 points for filling them completely. Frames in the base game often felt like a weaker move, but these new ones change the game. Suddenly, grabbing a frame early feels like a smart, rewarding strategy.

There are also a couple of quality-of-life updates:

• Frame Drafting Adjustment: To better balance the new frames, they’re now split into two stacks. When gaining a frame, players can choose the top frame from either stack, adding an element of choice and strategy.
• Explore Token Tweaks: Unused explore tokens are no longer placed in the box, they’re now placed to the side of the board. When a player earns an explore token from a random planet, they can now select one from the shared pool instead.

With all these tweaks, Expanding the Hive doesn’t just add variety- it transforms how you approach the game. Let’s talk about what that means for gameplay.

Sweet like honey?

Let’s tackle the usual expansion questions first:

• Does it fit in the base box? Barely.
• Is there a ton of new rules to learn? No.
• Does it improve the game? Absolutely.
• Would I play without it now that I have it? Nope.
• Is it a must-have? I have mixed feelings.

If you’re the type of player who wants the best version of every game in your collection, then Apiary: Expanding the Hive is a must-have. The balance changes alone make this the definitive edition.

That said, unless you’ve played Apiary extensively, you might not even notice most of the balance tweaks – I know I didn’t. What stood out were the new hive mats and spaceship frames, which challenged how I previously approached the game, opening up strategies I hadn’t considered before.

Take the Cedoni, the new faction introduced in this expansion. Their ability gives bonuses for building frames, which pushed me to prioritise hive expansion early—a strategy I usually avoid in favour of grabbing carvings. But with the new frames’ unique bonuses, this shift paid off big time.

The new hive mats also open up fresh strategies. The National hive, for example, encourages you to focus on building up farms and rewards you for exploiting them. Meanwhile, The Hexagon pushes you to build aggressively by granting free carvings when you surround its central hex. How good is that?

The rest of the expansion—new farms, recruits, developments, and seed cards—blends so seamlessly into the base game that it feels like they were always there. Even with the added mechanics, like downgrading bee strength or discarding frames, it’s more of an evolution than a reinvention.

Ultimately, Expanding the Hive doesn’t overhaul Apiary; it enhances it. It adds new paths to victory while keeping the core gameplay intact. Apiary was already one of my favourite games of 2024, and this expansion makes it even better.

That said, don’t expect a dramatic transformation. It’s less of a sequel and more like a really solid patch.